Sunday 30 July 2017
Movie Review: Heist (2015)
A derivative crime thriller, Heist liberally borrows ideas from other sources but still sinks into its own yawning plot holes. A decent cast barely avoids a total write-off.
Luke Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a card dealer at the casino run by Francis "The Pope" Silva (Robert De Niro) and regularly frequented by money laundering Asian mobsters. Vaughn was formerly The Pope's protégé, a position now occupied by Derrick “The Dog” Prince (Morris Chestnut). Vaughn's young daughter is sick and he needs to quickly raise $300,000 for her life-saving operation, but The Pope turns down his request for a loan. In desperation Vaughn teams up with fellow-employee Jason Cox (Dave Bautista) and they plan an after-hours robbery of the casino.
The heist yields $3 million but the getaway goes wrong, and Vaughn, Cox and their wounded accomplice Dante (Stephen Cyrus Sepher, who also wrote and co-produced the film) hijack a city bus driven by Bernie (D.B. Sweeney), with police officer Kris Bajos (Gina Carano) in hot pursuit. The combustible Cox threatens mayhem, and it's left to Vaughn to negotiate with Kris to try and diffuse the situation. Meanwhile The Pope lets Dog loose to retrieve the stolen loot and also has to deal with failing health and an estranged daughter Sydney (Kate Bosworth).
A simplistic mash-up of The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3 with Speed, Heist does not try too hard. Dependant almost entirely on the performances by De Niro and Morgan, director Scott Mann barely sketches in the plot, leaving out most of the required logic and just riding the kinetic energy of a high-stakes theft-from-thieves gone wrong.
The plot holes happily ride along the bus, and range from Kris the police officer breaking every rule in the book to The Pope seemingly having an army of goons and infiltrators at his disposal, and culminating in a reveal near the climax that is fully dependent on wild coincidences.
Set against the fast and loose plot is a welcome attempt to flesh out the two central characters. It is corny, but amidst all the burning petrol The Pope's quietly tense encounter with his daughter is the highlight of the film and at least sets up an interesting parallel dynamic with Vaughn. The latter's need-to-save-my-daughter imperative provides a shaky foundation for his return to a life of crime, but is also enough to differentiate Vaughn from the pure evil of his fellow criminals.
De Niro and Morgan are much better than the rudimentary material, but take the project seriously enough to register some moments of welcome depth, both men lamenting lives that could have gone better. It's not enough to elevate Heist to a decent film, but at least the acting talent on the bus goes round and round along with all the other recycled debris.
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
Saturday 29 July 2017
Movie Review: Chain Reaction (1996)
A doltish thriller set in the world of science, Chain Reaction has an incomprehensible plot and defaults to a tiresome series of repetitive and routine chases.
In Chicago, a group of University-funded researchers are working on a new hydrogen-based power source to produce plentiful and free energy. Dr. Paul Shannon (Morgan Freeman) and Dr. Alistair Barkley (Nicholas Rudall) head the project, and the team includes physicist Dr. Lily Sinclair (Rachel Weisz), machinist Eddie Kasalivich (Keanu Reeves) and project manager Dr. Lu Chen (Tzi Ma). When the team finally achieves a breakthrough, their warehouse headquarters is invaded and destroyed in a spectacular explosion by unknown assailants. Barkley is killed, Chen disappears, and Sinclair and Kasalivich are framed as spies for a foreign government and go on the run.
FBI Agents Ford (Fred Ward) and Doyle (Kevin Dunn) lead the investigation, but Eddie and Lily stay one step ahead of their pursuers as they try to reconnect with Shannon. Meanwhile, the secretive C-Systems Research company headed by Lyman Earl Collier (Brian Cox) emerges as a shadow organization trying to control the science behind hydrogen energy.
Directed by Andrew Davis three years after his success with The Fugitive, Chain Reaction attempts to recreate the same formula of innocents-on-the-run and fails miserably. The fault lies entirely in a lame script credited to J.F. Lawton and Michael Bortman that places the focus squarely on scientific discovery and a large-scale conspiracy, and then fails miserably to explain itself even at the most rudimentary level.
This is a film where none of the villainous actions make any sense. The murder, large-scale destruction and mayhem caused by the explosion that launches the film appears to have achieved nothing, in that the bad guys flattened half of Chicago but did not manage to steal the secrets of the technology that purportedly triggered their action. The science is reduced to a series of noisy lasers, flashing lights and violently shaking cylinders, none of it deemed worthy of any clarification. The conspiracy is hurriedly explained in vague terms about world economic collapse, but the script does not bother to reveal what the antagonists' intentions are.
Elsewhere the lack of attention to basic details is evident. Eddie and Lily are supposedly smart people on the run for the entire film and never try to change their appearance. Perhaps Reeves demanded that his flowy long hair remain untouched during the shoot. Lily is a physicist, but the unfortunate Rachel Weisz is reduced to an almost mute appendage being pulled along by Reeves as they look for the next narrow escape. Not once does she say anything remotely smart or contribute to the plot.
With an acute lack of anything resembling thoughtfulness, Chain Reaction offers a never ending series of cheap thrills. This is bad guys chasing good guys in circles for close to two hours, less a sequential reaction and more of a downward spiral of dumbness.
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
Labels:
Brian Cox,
Fred Ward,
Keanu Reeves,
Morgan Freeman,
Rachel Weisz
Friday 28 July 2017
The Movies Of Angela Bassett
All movies starring Angela Bassett and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:
Kindergarten Cop (1990)
Boyz N The Hood (1991)
Labels:
Angela Bassett
Wednesday 26 July 2017
Movie Review: The Song Of Bernadette (1943)
A religious drama based on reported events, The Song Of Bernadette is an engaging story of belief balanced by a reasonable amount of cynicism.
It's the late 1850s in the small town of Lourdes in France. Bernadette Soubirous (Jennifer Jones) is 14 years old and lives in a dank single-room basement dwelling with her mostly unemployed father Francois (Roman Bohnen), mother Louise (Anne Revere) and siblings. The family is poor and Francois struggles to put food on the table. Frequently sick and admittedly a bit dim, Bernadette struggles to learn her catechism at the Catholic school and is humiliated by her teacher Sister Vauzous (Gladys Cooper).
One day while out collecting firewood the image of a beautiful Lady (an uncredited Linda Darnell) appears to Bernadette in a rock niche near the town's garbage dump. No one else sees the Lady, but Bernadette insists that she was there, and furthermore, that the Lady promised to reappear on many successive days. Bernadette's claims are met with skepticism by her parents as well as Mayor Lacade (Aubrey Mather), Imperial Prosecutor Vital Dutour (Vincent Price), and police chief Jacomet (Charles Dingle). Doctor Dozous (Lee J. Cobb) is brought in to examine her, while local Catholic Abbott Dominique Peyramale (Charles Bickford) adopts a hands-off, wait-and-see attitude.
The local population starts to accompany Bernadette to the site, and news spreads of the visions. When a water stream with apparent healing properties emerges near the location of the Lady's appearances, the crowds multiply and the story attracts national attention.
Directed by Henry King, The Song Of Bernadette is an adaptation of the best-selling book by Franz Werfel. The story of the Virgin Mary appearing repeatedly to a naive girl is beyond debate for devout Catholics, but probably represents nothing more than overactive hallucinations combined with a strong willingness to believe among the uneducated.
Those whose lives are made better worshipping rocks and supposed spectral images visible to only one person, augmented by magically healing water and the sweet words of a fairly dumb 14 year old, will need no convincing that all this is true. But screenwriter George Seaton deserves a lot of credit for maintaining, sometimes forcefully, a sarcastic and opportunistic alternative narrative through the words and actions of Mayor Lacade, Imperial Prosecutor Dutour and police chief Jacomet.
This trio and others refuse to believe anything other than Bernadette is either sick or manipulative, and director King gives them plenty of time and scenes to make their point. Even Sister Vauzous remains among the sceptics for long stretches, while Abbott Peyramale rides the fence and remains troubled by some aspects of Bernadette's story. Only towards the end of the film does King tilt the balance towards reverence.
The running length of 156 minutes is quite hefty, but this is a story spanning many years and rich in characters and events, and King rarely lingers in one place for too long. The sets are limited but intricate. The garbage dump, the cramped Soubirous household, a bustling town environment and the more ostentatious government offices capture the rich mosaic of a small but busy society. Alfred Newman replaced Igor Stravinsky and provides an evocative but sometimes overbearing orchestral score that plays throughout.
Helped by producer David O. Selznick, Jennifer Jones (previously known as Phyllis Isley) relaunched her career and landed the Best Actress Academy Award for her turn as Bernadette. For most of the film Jones delivers a monotonal performance, speaking in an irritatingly fake girlish tone. The final scenes, set some 20 years after the visions, offer her an opportunity to stretch and she becomes more credible. The supporting cast is deep in talent, with Charles Bickford, Vincent Price, Anne Revere, and late on, Gladys Cooper sharing the load and all leaving a positive impression.
The Song Of Bernadette is a graceful film, and handles spiritual territory with sensitivity and a nod towards alternative viewpoints. Bernadette may have been a saint chosen to inspire religious fervour, or a dimwitted girl caught in a web created by her own imagination. Either way, the story of the passion she ignited is worth watching.
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
Tuesday 25 July 2017
Movie Review: Good Kids (2016)
An end-of-high-school comedy, Good Kids is about 35 years behind the times.
Four brainy 18 year old friends who have emphasized academic achievement over having fun throughout their school years arrive at their final summer before college. Suddenly, they decide to let loose for a few weeks. Andy (Nicholas Braun) becomes a toy boy tennis pro servicing the sexual needs of club cougars, including Gabby (Ashley Judd). Nora (Zoey Deutch) seeks romance and starts a relationship with a 30 year old Australian man. Aspiring chef Spice (Israel Broussard) goes looking for a straightforward sexual release. And Lionel (Mateo Arias), better known as the "The Lion", starts experimenting with drugs.
As the previously good kids go wild, Andy realizes that he harbours feelings for Nora, but things get more complicated when his dishy online pal Danya (Tasie Lawrence) arrives for a visit from India.
Written and directed by Chris McCoy, Good Kids is astonishingly bad. Apparently oblivious that this sub-genre of sexual high jinx by high school kids was thoroughly chewed and spit out in the early to mid 1980s, Good Kids spends its entire running length in the putrid landfill of old garbage ideas. McCoy does not offer a single original reason for this film to exist, as his characters behave with plastic predictability and spout recycled dialogue on their way from one over-familiar situation to the next.
Kid caught naked in the open? Run-in with the local cops? Suddenly falling in love with a friend? Drugs impairing work? Clueless parents? An older man playing a teen for a fool? And the ever original final party that ends in a brawl? All the boxes are ticked as Good Kids revives one moribund cliche per scene with spiritless monotony.
Ashley Judd gets a couple of scenes as an oversexed rich bored wife looking for a cheap thrill with a teen, and it is sad to find a once-classy actress reduced to an appearance in this bilge. Elsewhere Zoey Deutch (daughter of Leah Thompson and director Howard Deutch) reveals hints that she deserves better material.
The Good Kids want to dabble with being bad, but instead stumble into thoroughly dreadful territory.
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
Labels:
Ashley Judd,
Zoey Deutch
Monday 24 July 2017
Movie Review: The Beguiled (2017)
A Civil War psychological drama, The Beguiled is a more lyrical remake of Don Siegel's 1971 classic. Director Sofia Coppola softens some of the edges but maintains a keen focus on the theme of emotional and physical survival.
Rural Virginia, in the fourth year of the American Civil War. While out collecting mushrooms, 12 year old Amy (Oona Laurence) stumbles onto badly wounded Union soldier Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) and helps him back to the school for girls run by Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman) and teacher Edwina (Kirsten Dunst). With the war raging, only a few students have remained at the school, including the eldest Alicia (Elle Fanning), who is bored of all the repetitive lessons.
Martha agrees to temporarily shelter McBurney and tends to his leg wound, but fully intends to hand him over to Confederate troops as soon as he recovers. The soldier's presence at the school disrupts the status quo, and he quickly appreciates that he has limited time to influence the women and avoid a prisoner's fate. McBurney uses a combination of flattery, gratitude and seduction to turn the women to his side, but also ignites jealousies and conflict.
Director Coppola also wrote and co-produced the film, and The Beguiled overflows with her hallmark soft veneer of natural beauty, gentle light and flowing aesthetics hiding simmering tension. The physical setting is a wooded corner of Virginia at the interface between battlefields - heard but not seen - and an old fashioned school clinging to the vestiges of a disappearing way of life. But the real location of the film lies in the hearts and minds of seven women, suddenly awakened by a manly presence. Coppola aims her attention at the women's emotional state, and McBurney probing for openings to chart a path to freedom through charm, flattery and deception.
Coppola spreads the 94 minutes of running time across four of the women. Miss Martha is the pragmatic leader, the woman responsible for the girls and the facility. Yet a man is a man, and despite her cold and calculating demeanour she is not beyond appreciating what McBurney may offer. Teacher Edwina is older than the other girls, caught in a nowheresville life with relatively plain looks. It does not take McBurney long to identify her as the weakest link.
Alicia is blossoming into a woman, her sexual awakening kicked into overdrive by the soldier's presence. And finally young Amy can lay claim to having found McBurney, and is just old enough to harbour a crush that he can exploit.
Despite the short length the film does drag in the middle act before picking up again as the climax approaches with an eruption of colliding aspirations fueled by alcohol. Compared to the original Coppola strips out some of the characters and more radical incidents from the narrative, leaving the mostly calm interplay between the central characters to carry the entire load of the film, and at times the energy dips to saggy levels.
But the performances are uniformly good, with Kirsten Dunst the most quietly expressive, her searching, desperate eyes betraying a heart all too ready to believe in empty promises. Colin Farrell brings to the role more charm and less obvious dominance compared to Clint Eastwood.
The Beguiled is a meditation on the damage unleashed when war seeps inside the walls of civility. The big guns rage outside, but they are no match for the turmoil within.
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
Labels:
Colin Farrell,
Elle Fanning,
Kirsten Dunst,
Nicole Kidman
Sunday 23 July 2017
Movie Review: Dunkirk (2017)
A stellar World War Two film, Dunkirk is the story of an army's survival, defeat salvaged from the jaws of catastrophe as seen through the eyes of the combatants.
Three separate but convergent stories related to the evacuation of the defeated British Army at Dunkirk, France in 1940 are recounted simultaneously. In the first story young British Army Private Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) barely survives patrol duties in the town and flees to the beach where he tries to find his way onto an evacuation ship. But with the beaches under fire from German guns and aircraft, the injured are being evacuated first. Over the course of a week Tommy teams up with Gibson (Aneurin Barnard), a soldier of few words. They rescue fellow soldier Alex (Harry Styles) from death by crushing and then attempt to smuggle themselves on-board any available outbound vessel.
The second story takes place over one day and features civilian Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) and his teenaged son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) responding to the British Navy's call for assistance. Without waiting for official help they set sail from England in Dawson's small boat with their eager helper George (Barry Keoghan). The Dawsons soon pluck a shell-shocked mariner out of the water, and doggedly continue on their way towards the hell of the Dunkirk beaches.
The final story takes place over one hour, and centers on Farrier (Tom Hardy), one of three Royal Air Force pilots flying towards the skies over Dunkirk to provide what support they can and counter the German air threat. Farrier engages in dogfights with Luftwaffe fighters and attempts to shoot down bombers targeting evacuation ships. Gradually Farrier becomes increasingly isolated and low on fuel.
Meanwhile, the Navy's Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) is doing his best to organize an orderly withdrawal of more than 300,000 men in the face of hostile seas and incessant enemy pressure.
Written, directed and co-produced by Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk is a beautifully overwhelming and all-encompassing multi-sensory experience. Eschewing traditional narrative structures in favour of telling a story with barely any dialogue, no defined heroes and no venomous villains, Nolan allows the evacuation itself to take centre stage as a seminal event and pursues it from the land, the sea and the air.
Whereas Saving Private Ryan was about the ethos of a generation, Fury delved into the limits of sacrifice and Hacksaw Ridge focused on one individual's private war against war, Dunkirk is about a nation's psyche. As such Nolan is less interested in the mechanics of battle or individual actions; rather this is a film about collective character being forged through the mist of a stunned and stunning reaction to a devastating retreat.
Each of the three stories generates specific momentum and unrelenting tension. The fear, frustration, hunger and desperation of the massed soldiers builds up in the eyes of Tommy, Gibson, Alex and others, willing to try anything to get on a boat, despite the danger of being blown out of the water by the marauding German bombers. The stoic response of the civilian population is represented by Mr. Dawson and his son Peter, and their chapter most embodies the spirit of Dunkirk as a country comes together to rescue its sons. Meanwhile the dogfights and aerial duels in the sky are superbly choreographed, the pilot Farrier aware that his contribution can only be small but yet decisive in terms of morale and for the lives he may save.
To augment the impressive vistas of a gloomy beachfront war theatre, Hans Zimmer provides a soundtrack that is simultaneously filled with dread, anticipation and extreme anxiety, adding to jarringly loud sound effects that bring the horrors of war to the fore. Every bullet in Dunkirk registers as a transmittal of potential death, every bomb and torpedo an individual parcel of destruction. The few lines of dialogue suffer in comparison and are often drowned out or garbled.
In the absence of a focus on individuals, Nolan's cast is filled with newcomers and relative unknowns in most of the key roles. Mark Rylance as Mr. Dawson, Kenneth Branagh as the pier master Commander Bolton and Tom Hardy as the pilot Farrier share the most prominent acts of above-and-beyond valour. On the beach, the widescreen is filled with thousands of startled young men maintaining relative calm and some discipline in the face of enemy fire as they patiently await either rescue or death.
Dunkirk is war in its unspoken complexity, death, hope, bravery and astonishing selflessness coming together to define a nation and write a momentous chapter in a history-defining conflict.
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
Labels:
Cillian Murphy,
Kenneth Branagh,
Mark Rylance,
Tom Hardy
Saturday 22 July 2017
Movie Review: Wildcats (1986)
A sports comedy, Wildcats is stunningly predictable. But the underdog theme combined with the women's empowerment message contains enough rude energy to make the film tolerable.
In Chicago, Molly McGrath (Goldie Hawn) grew up in a football household and always wanted to coach. Now a divorced mother of two girls and an athletics coach at Prescott high school, she makes a case to fill the vacant junior varsity football coach position but is mocked and blocked by senior coach Dan Darwell (Bruce McGill). Instead she accepts the challenge to coach the senior boys football team at the tough inner-city Central High School. The principal Ben Edwards (Nipsey Russell) is willing to take a chance on Molly because no one else wants the position.
She encounters fierce the resistance from the team members, including Trumaine (Wesley Snipes) and Krushinski (Woody Harrelson) before earning their respect and setting out to turn the perennial losers into a functioning team. Her prospects improve when she convinces quarterback Levander "Bird" Williams (Mykelti Williamson) to turn his back on a life of crime and return to the team. But on the home front things are not going well, with ex-husband Frank (James Keach) claiming that Molly's new job is a bad influence on their daughters and seeking full custody.
Directed by Michael Ritchie, Wildcats has enough talent on both sides of the camera to pull itself into respectability. The story of a team of multi-ethnic misfits coming good fully buys into the White Savior trope, and Molly's ability to transform losers into perpetual winners within a few short weeks is nothing short of remarkable. But Wildcats also contains an edge in its fearless deployment of adult-language, and the script by Ezra Sacks insists on investing time exploring the price ambitious women have to pay at home and at work.
The scenes of domestic turmoil are clunky but do add texture to the film's message. Juggling a demanding new job with household single-mom duties stretches Molly to her limit, exposing her to the risk of losing her daughters. The film brings into sharp contrast the unattainable standards to which women could be held. The invisible barriers between white suburbia and inner city hurt are also revealed: Frank panics at the dangers he perceives everywhere once Molly starts to interact with black and hispanic youth, while Molly's dedication to the family he abandoned is quickly forgotten.
The on-field football action scenes are plentiful and patchy. Ritchie sometimes succeeds in creating fluid sports movement, but just as frequently plays it for plastic laughs in obviously staged sequences. Meanwhile the script abandons any pretense of aiming for a family-friendly audience. The language is raunchy and includes several jarring foul-mouthed zingers.
Goldie Hawn, near the peak of her career, brings her megawatt personality to the film and frequently lights up the screen. She combines her spunky persona with a determination to succeed and to break the victim pattern of her life, and pulls it off with ease. While most of the rest of the lead roles are at the television level, Wildcats features a telling performance from comedian Nipsey Russell, the debuts of Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes, and an early role for Mykelti Williamson.
Wildcats is far from throwing a touchdown, but does pick up good yards here and there.
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
Labels:
Goldie Hawn,
Wesley Snipes,
Woody Harrelson
Friday 21 July 2017
Movie Review: Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
A romantic comedy with a twist, Grosse Pointe Blank follows a cold-blooded but sympathetic hit-man as he attends his high school reunion to pursue his dream girl while dodging bullets.
Martin Blank (John Cusack) is an independent assassin for hire, receiving his missions through his assistant Marcella (Joan Cusack). Fellow hit-man Grocer (Dan Aykroyd) tries to convince him to join a cartel, but Martin wants to maintain independence. Starting to feel depressed and jaded Martin's mood is not improved when a couple of his missions are bungled. His shrink Dr. Oatman (Alan Arkin) is of little use.
After being nagged incessantly by Marcella, Martin agrees to attend his 10 year reunion at Grosse Pointe high school in a Detroit suburb, but only after his next target happens to also be in the same city. He uses the opportunity to try and win back the love of Debi (Minnie Driver), the sweetheart he abandoned on prom night ten years prior. He also bumps into other high school friends including real estate agent Paul (Jeremy Piven). As he makes progress in wooing Debi, Martin realizes that Grosse Pointe is crawling with hit men, and that he may be a target.
Set to a continuous soundtrack of mid-1980s hits, Grosse Pointe Blank takes a sardonic look at the love life of a killer. Directed by George Armitage with John Cusack co-writing, the film goes into rarely explored territory where killers need affection too, and laughs, love and hot lead collide. It doesn't necessarily always work as intended, but enough emotional mayhem registers to make the film stand out.
With so much going on some parts of the narrative kookiness understandably land awkwardly. Unless blatant satire was the goal, Debi's ability to look past Martin's profession and love him anyway was never going to be an easy sell. The music soundtrack also occasionally overreaches and gets in the way. While the selection of hits from the 1980s is a boon to fans of the decade, stretches of the film introduce a new track every 10 seconds, the songs disintegrating into useless snippet territory. And finally the big reunion scene is a messy series of encounters that seem to start and stop at random and offer nothing new.
But for the most part Grosse Pointe Blank delivers an irreverent mash-up of wild action, romantic pursuit, career depression and caustic comedy. And the genres somehow rub against each other at the right angles, the film emerging as a unique hybrid refusing to adhere to any preconceived notions of formula. Rarely has a love story with a high school backdrop been interrupted by an intense gunfight between two assassins culminating in a bomb placed in a microwave. And of course the battle happens to take place in a mini mart that displaced Martin's childhood home, just to add to the hero's depressed sense of aggrieved angst.
John Cusack brings his persona of intense cool to Martin Blank, and provides the film with its critical centre of gravity. None of the other characters are too important to matter. Even Debi is reduced to lazily orbiting Martin's disorderly life, Minnie Driver unable to exert much pull on the proceedings other than work through Debi's residual anger issues.
Grosse Pointe Blank bravely goes back home, and with a wicked smile gleefully breaks all the rules.
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
Labels:
Alan Arkin,
Dan Aykroyd,
Joan Cusack,
John Cusack,
Minnie Driver
Thursday 20 July 2017
The Movies Of Spring Byington
All movies starring Spring Byington and reviewed on the Ace Black Blog are linked below:
Little Women (1933)
Mutiny On The Bounty (1935)
The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1936)
Jezebel (1938)
Meet John Doe (1941)
I'll Be Seeing You (1944)
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
The Index of Movie Stars is here.
Labels:
Spring Byington
Wednesday 19 July 2017
Movie Review: Tumbledown (2015)
A romantic drama with a sprinkling of humour, Tumbledown carries plenty of charm as it works its way through the late stages of personal grief.
In a small town in Maine, Hannah Miles (Rebecca Hall) is a young widow still grieving the death two years prior of her husband Hunter. He was an up-and-coming folk singer who released just one album prior to his mysterious death. Protective of Hunter's legacy, Hannah fends off persistent approaches from New York-based professor Andrew McCabe (Jason Sudeikis) to interview her for a book about talented musicians who died early.
Hannah takes a crack at writing Hunter's biography, but her friend and local bookstore owner Upton (Griffin Dunne) convinces her that she needs writing help. She swallows her pride and hires Andrew as her co-author. He moves into her cabin and as he starts to uncover details about Hunter's life and death, an undeniable attraction develops between the widow and the academic.
Directed by Sean Mewshaw and written by Desiree Van Til, Tumbledown is an appealing journey along the seam between mourning and living. The film blends lightweight drama and wry humour in balanced doses and benefits from a rustic rural setting. Mewshaw maintains a light mood and brisk pacing as the story explores weighty themes, while the folk music soundtrack adds a melancholy tone.
The road to recovery from the untimely death of a loved one is an arduous process, and Tumbledown captures Hannah at the place where she can have fun, laugh and fight for what she believes in, but where she also remains beholden to the memory of a happier time and a partner who grows more ideal by his absence. Andrew is further along in his trip away from a similar trauma but is caught looking for obvious answers in a complex reality.
The film does not escape the linearity of romantic movies that start with two attractive people clashing furiously, and some plot developments such as Andrew moving into Hannah's cabin happen with illogical speed. But one of Tumbledown's graceful achievements is in avoiding some of the more obvious genre traps. Hannah will of course chart a course towards loving again, but not before she exposes Andrew to some unexpected lessons about the magic that develops in perfect unions, relationship nuggets unleashed by welcoming Andrew into Hunter's sanctuary.
Rebecca Hall infuses Tumbledown with most of its appeal. She sometimes slips briefly into overacting, but mostly straddles a fine line between Hannah's wicked independent streak and her still-tender emotional scars. Jason Sudeikis is more monotonal and less convincing as a romantic lead.
The rest of the cast features a quirky mix, and includes Blythe Danner and Richard Masur as Hannah's parents, Dianna Agron as Andrew's girlfriend Finley, and Joe Manganiello as Hannah's hunter-gatherer casual sex buddy.
Despite some predictable constraints that come with the territory of romantic movies, Tumbledown is a relatively elegant and thoughtful search for love on the far side of emotional damage.
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
Labels:
Blythe Danner,
Jason Sudeikis,
Rebecca Hall
Tuesday 18 July 2017
The Movies Of Ginger Rogers
All movies starring Ginger Rogers and reviewed on the Ace Black Blog are linked below:
Top Hat (1935)
Primrose Path (1940)
The Major And The Minor (1942)
I'll Be Seeing You (1944)
The Barkleys Of Broadway (1949)
Monkey Business (1952)
All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
The Index of Movie Stars is here.
Labels:
Ginger Rogers
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