Movie Review: Stillwater (2021)

Genre: Crime Mystery Drama

Director: Tom McCarthy

Starring: Matt Damon, Camille Cottin, Abigail Breslin

Running Time: 140 minutes

Synopsis: Oil rig worker Bill Baker (Matt Damon), from the small Oklahoma town of Stillwater, travels to Marseille, France, to visit his imprisoned daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin). She is serving a nine year sentence for stabbing to death her college lover Lina, a crime she denies committing. Allison is aware of new hearsay evidence that could exonerate her, but Bill finds the justice system uninterested in reopening the case. He starts his own amateur sleuthing, helped by his hotel room neighbour Virginie (Camille Cottin) and her young daughter Maya.

What Works Well: Director and co-writer Tom McCarthy combines a patient amateur investigation with a character-based drama luxuriating in a stranger abroad premise, spiked with multiple cross-cutting culture clash and stereotype undercurrents. Matt Damon slows down and disappears into the role of a blue collar dimwit aware of his limitations but seeking redemption for past mistakes. The unlikely relationships Bill develops with Virginie and her daughter Maya emit a warm glow within the scrappy multi-ethnic Marseille surroundings.

What Does Not Work As Well: The 140 minute length is inexcusable, and combined with uneven pacing results in a flabby mid-section. The final act is refreshingly untidy, but also rushed. For better or worse, the entire plot works as an unsubtle parable for the follies of American foreign interventionism.

Conclusion: Stillwater runs deep, and long.



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Movie Review: My Sister's Keeper (2009)

A family drama, My Sister's Keeper explores the exhausting emotional consequences of caring for a severely ill child.

Sara and Brian Fitzgerald (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) are raising three children, but 15 year old daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) is their main priority. She has a rare form of leukaemia and has been undergoing treatment most of her life. Sara quit her career as a lawyer and dedicated her life to care for Kate. The Fitzgeralds even conceived younger daughter Anna and engineered her genes primarily to be a donor for her older sister. Meanwhile, son Jesse (Evan Ellingson) is dyslexic but has received little parental attention.

Now 11 years old, Anna (Abigail Breslin) decides she no longer wants to undergo surgeries and donate body parts to her sister. She hires celebrity lawyer Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) and sues her parents for "medical emancipation". Sara is shocked that her younger daughter is rebelling, but Brian, a firefighter, is more understanding. As the court case proceeds with Judge De Salvo (Joan Cusack) presiding, flashbacks reveal Kate's life-long struggles and experiences, including a romance with fellow cancer patient Taylor (Thomas Dekker).

A finely-tuned weepy, My Sister's Keeper hits all the sad notes it aims for. The Jodi Picoult novel is translated to the screen by director Nick Cassavetes and co-writer Jeremy Leven, and jointly they don't miss an opportunity to cram agony into the lives of the Fitzgeralds. The journey through the parental nightmare of a child's horrific illness conveys acute pain, grief, and disappointment, but also grim determination to spare nothing in an effort to defeat a formidable disease.

The narrative core, and the film's strongest moments, are found in the time and space where the limits of caring infringe on irrationality. Sara is so consumed with Kate's survival that heroic efforts become routine, and she envelopes her entire self within the quest to prolong her daughter's life. Anna's action in suing her parents is the last remaining alarm bell that could awaken Sara from the singularly focused dark state she created for herself. With the prickly intervention of Alec Baldwin's slick lawyer, the debate over sacrifice imposed upon others is treated with sharp respect.

Elsewhere My Sister's Keeper settles down to a polished but standard recounting of cancer's ravaging impacts. From the horrors of shock diagnosis to endless rounds of treatment, the very few ups have to compensate for many downs, understandably fraying the bonds between Sara and Brian. When he finally puts his foot down and grants Kate some joy at the expense of Sara's rigid rules, their marriage threatens to rupture.

The flashback romance between Kate and Taylor is an adequate sub-story with its own highs and lows, and does present a moment of unbridled familial joy. The grounded performances by the stellar cast ride with the drama but avoid most histrionics, with Cameron Diaz delivering one of her finest dramatic roles. The two young actresses Sofia Vassilieva and Abigail Breslin forge a heart and soul of provocation and perseverance.

Emotion-packed, sometimes melodramatic, but still compelling, My Sister's Keeper is propelled by the courage to confront, obvious and visible within a mother, more crafty in her offspring.



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Movie Review: No Reservations (2007)

A romance set in the world of chefs, No Reservations features plenty of quail and saffron sauce but the portions are meager.

In New York City, Kate (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is a highly-strung perfectionist chef running her own kitchen at a classy restaurant owned by Paula (Patricia Clarkson). Kate is very much single, obsessive about recipes, runs her life according to a strict set of rules, and her sessions with a therapist (Bob Balaban) are not helping.

Tragedy strikes when Kate's sister perishes in a car crash, and Kate is tasked with looking after her young niece Zoe (Abigail Breslin). At the same time Paula hires opera-loving Nick (Aaron Eckhart) as a new sous-chef, disrupting Kate's kitchen dynamics. Kate has to deal with sudden parental responsibilities, look after Zoe's fragile emotions and learn to deal with Nick's expansive style and his romantic overtures.

Directed by Scott Hicks, No Reservations is as bland and predictable as a boring meal at an unfashionable suburban family restaurant. Despite decent production values, a scenic New York City, plenty of talk about exotic food and endless visuals featuring sumptuous dinners under preparation in Kate's kitchen, when it comes to the actual story, the film falls flat.

The film is devoid of humour and any serious drama, so this is neither a romantic comedy nor a tragedy of any sort. No Reservations features a peripheral romance between Kate and Nick, but Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart fail to generate much chemistry. Eckhart is particularly challenged to portray a romantic leading man in a role more suitable for the likes of Owen Wilson. Zeta-Jones swings too far towards the harried professional aspects of Kate's life, and forgets to let her hair down and slip into something more playful to spark the romance.

The film finds a marginally more appealing focus in Zoe's story, the young girl creating a sudden new domestic focus for Kate, and allowing Nick to display his empathy through acts of kindness towards the child.

The answer to the question of whether Kate will make space for some randomness and disorganization in her life is never in doubt. No Reservations purposefully heads to its predictable conclusion, Kate and Nick almost mechanically navigating around the typical obstacles and misunderstanding thrown at their burgeoning relationship. The film talks the high cuisine talk, but delivers entertainment as fresh as last week's fish.

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Movie Review: The Call (2013)

A high concept thriller with some horror elements, The Call carries echoes of the 1990s in its basic simplicity, but delivers better than expected entertainment.

In Los Angeles, Jordan Turner (Halle Berry) is a 911 operator. She receives a frantic call for help from a girl threatened by a home invasion in progress. Despite Jordan's best efforts the girl is murdered, sending Jordan into a depression. Months later, Jordan receives a cell phone call from Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin), another young girl who has just been abducted by an unknown assailant and stuffed into the trunk of a car, now speeding down the freeway.

Jordan has to pull herself together, face her demons and try to help Casey avoid a horrible fate. The cell phone is a disposable unit lacking a locator signal, so Jordan prompts Casey to attract attention in various ways, including kicking out the car's taillight. Gradually emergency responders, including Jordan's police officer boyfriend Paul Phillips (Morris Chestnut), start zeroing in on the moving car, but the kidnapper Michael Foster (Michael Eklund) is a deeply disturbed and dangerous man, with abominable plans in store for Casey.

An independent production directed by Brad Anderson, The Call carves out refreshingly original territory in the tired woman-in-distress thriller genre. The heroine is a 911 dispatcher, and the command centre is "the Hive" where all the calls come in and operators deal with brutal levels of stress on a daily basis. The film humanizes what is often a dispassionate, peripheral voice in all other cop movies, and Jordan Turner gives heart and emotion to the people exposed in real time to society's worst crises.

The first two thirds of the film stick close to the trauma of Jordan dealing with the crushing blow of the opening murder, and then crawling over the shards of her self doubt to try and help Casey survive long enough for a rescue to be mounted. The bond between 911 operator and kidnap victim is at the core of the film, and Anderson does an excellent job creating palpable edge-of-panic on both sides of the phone. Jordan is Casey's only hope to live, and Casey is Jordan's only chance at redemption, and the two women establish an unspoken but potent pact of mutual dependence.

From there the film dances with the dark edges of outright horror, as the perpetrator Michael Foster is coloured in and emerges as quite the monster, with a deranged mind and a twisted past. But Anderson eventually surrenders to the pull of more routine fare. Jordan leaves the Hive to get personally involved, the film abandons its creative premise in favour of a familiar climax, complete with typical plot holes and all the cliches that emerge when a vulnerable woman clashes with a manic killer.

Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin make for an effective screen pairing, both unleashing satisfying doses of consternation, fury and resiliency without crossing the line into ridiculous heroics. Neither of their characters is provided with too much depth, but together they carry the torch for women willing to fight back as best as they know how.

The Call may evoke an earlier generation of thrillers, but carries enough honesty to stay on the line.

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Movie Review: Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

A road trip comedy, Little Miss Sunshine offers up a contemporary family dealing with a unique brand of turmoil. Both funny and poignant, the film succeeds by staying close to reality and true to its message.

The Albuquerque family of Richard and Sheryl Hoover is in disarray. Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a fledgling motivational speaker trying to secure a book deal for a hokey 9-step self improvement program. The frazzled Sheryl (Toni Collette), struggling to keep the family functional, picks up her brother Frank (Steve Carrell) from the hospital after he tried to kill himself over after a failed relationship. Frank is a homosexual professor of literature and an expert on the French author Proust.

Sheryl: I'm so glad you're still here.
Frank: Well, that makes one of us.

The Hoover's teenaged son Dwayne (Paul Dano) is severely antisocial, reads Nietzche, and has taken a vow of silence until he achieves his dream of entering flight school. Seven year old and slightly portly daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) is thrilled to learn that she has qualified to enter the Little Miss Sunshine child beauty pageant, but this means that the family will have to travel to Redondo Beach, California. Richard's dad Edwin (Alan Arkin) lives with the Hoovers after having been kicked out of a retirement home. He is a curmudgeonly, foul-mouthed and disruptive presence, but is helping Olive prepare her routine for the pageant's skills competition. Edwin also dabbles in heroin.

Grandpa (Edwin): Every night it's the fucking chicken! Holy God Almighty! Is it possible, just once, we could get something to eat for dinner around here that's not the goddamned fucking chicken?

The family piles into their VW Van and embarks on the 800 mile road trip to California. Along the way not much will go according to plan: car trouble will slow down their progress; grandpa Edwin will encounter a significant mishap; Richard will finally receive news about his book deal, necessitating a quick detour to Scottsdale; the surly Dwayne will discover an unwelcome truth; and Frank will have to survive an awkward encounter with old acquaintances. As Olive's pageant draws closer, the family dynamics undergo dramatic changes.

[after being persuaded to go on the trip, Dwayne writes]
Frank: [reading Dwayne's writing] "Ok, but I'm not going to have any fun." Yeah, well, we're all with you on that one, Dwayne.

An independent film written by Michael Arndt and directed by the husband and wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine is the little film that could. With a brilliant cast, well-defined characters and no shortage of funny moments, the road trip where everything can go wrong becomes a journey about a family rewiring all its connections. Filled with moments of delicious awkwardness and character-driven humour, the film achieves and sustains an irresistible tone of irreverent merriment.

The film is a compact 101 minutes, and Dayton and Faris nail the pacing. The film never descends into farce, nor does it ever get bogged down in the many familial dramas. The balance is perfect, the comedy and drama working together, the frustrations mounting as the laughs accelerate.

Dwayne [writes] Please don't kill yourself tonight.
Frank: Not on your watch; I wouldn't do that to you.
Dwayne [writes] Welcome to Hell.
Frank: Thank you, Dwayne. Coming from you, that means a lot. Goodnight.

The theme throbbing at the heart of the film is about the strength of family ties, where problem issues can be extremely annoying but also superficial, and real strength resides in pushing together in the same direction. The VW van conspires to remind the Hoovers of the value of teamwork by losing its clutch early and necessitating a push start after every stop, the image of individuals forced to push together becoming the enduring image of the road trip. Later Richard and Dwayne will encounter severe disappointments while Edwin's unique misadventure threatens to derail the entire trip. The light and innocent touch of Olive becomes the most tender of unifying causes and a reason to believe in a better tomorrow.

None of the turmoil is lost on Frank, who serves as a recovering observer. Now he gets a front seat (or middle seat) to a family swimming in chaos, but also learning to stick together and not give up despite setbacks. Frank evolves from morose to a supportive role as he discovers that even he can provide caring at crucial moments.

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all of this, high school, everything.
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he, uh, he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18-- ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-- those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.

Little Miss Sunshine features a cast that could not have been more perfect. Abigail Breslin leads the way as the wide eyed, curious, talented and extremely grounded child navigating her way through the minefield of family emotions. Greg Kinnear has never been better, while Toni Collette delivers another stunning performance as the mother trying to anchor a flailing household. Paul Dano is a perfect fit for the dangerously tortured Dwayne, while Steve Carrell and Alan Arkin provide strong support and expert comic timing.

The family comes to terms that unique individuals make the whole richer, a lesson that hits home at the pageant. We have to let Olive be Olive is Sheryl's rallying call, and the young girl goes on to unintentionally outdo all the hypocrisy on display, her family right behind her on the imperfect stage of life.

Police Officer Martinez: Okay, you're out. On the condition that you never enter your daughter in a beauty pageant in the state of California, ever again... ever.
Frank: I think we can live with that.

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The Movies Of Abigail Breslin

All movies starring Abigail Breslin and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Signs (2002)

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

No Reservations (2007)

Definitely, Maybe (2008)

My Sister's Keeper (2009)

Zombieland (2009)

New Year's Eve (2011)

The Call (2013)

August: Osage County (2013)

Ender's Game (2013)

Stillwater (2021)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Definitely, Maybe (2008)

A romantic comedy with an amiable twist, Definitely, Maybe is a backstory of multiple romances leading to a divorce, as told by a father to his young daughter.

Will (Ryan Reynolds) is in the midst of a divorce. He is pressed by his 10 year old daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin), who has just had her first sex education class, to recount the story of all his serious relationships leading up to his marrying her Mom. Will agrees to do so, but hides the real names of his romantic partners to keep Maya guessing as to the identity of her mother.

As a young man Will was a political activist in Wisconsin, deeply in love with college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks). They remain committed to each other as Will moves to New York to work on Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign. In the big city he becomes friends with fellow campaign worker Russell (Derek Luke), and meets the sophisticated Summer (Rachel Weisz) and scrappy photocopy girl April (Isla Fisher). Summer was Emily's former roommate, and is now in a relationship with the much older pompous professor Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline). April is skeptical about politics but struggling to define what she is passionate about.

Will starts to develop feelings of genuine affection for April, but with Emily about to visit New York, Will prepares himself to remain faithful to his first love and propose marriage. But Emily has a surprise and all does not go according to plan. Will's future includes more complex relationships with Summer, April and Emily as Maya is kept guessing as to the identity of Mom and the ultimate destination of Dad's heart.

Written and directed by Adam Brooks, Definitely, Maybe does not stray far from the fundamental tenets of the romantic comedy genre but finds a fresh twist in packing three mini-romances into a charming puzzle as told to a child. The premise allows the film to neatly side-step the predictably of the preordained happy ending demanded by the genre. While it is certain that Will's tale will find an upbeat conclusion, the script is clever enough to conceal which partner will prove to be Maya's mother and the winner of Will's enduring affection.

The three-in-one format also allows the relationships to remain crisp and concise. Emily, Summer and April are provided with enough definition and quirkiness to come to life as individuals. Emily is the small-town girl struggling with her partner's big city political ambitions; Summer travels in literate circles and enjoys the company and mentorship of men like Hampton, and April is struggling to live up to her own potential and move beyond in-built sarcasm to constructive achievement.

All three are appealing and relatively well-rounded women, and it's easy to believe that Will can develop deep relationships with them. The film maintains interest by nurturing three complex affairs of the heart, rather than the typical struggle to maintain momentum with the artificial ups and downs of just one central romance. But in the final 30 minutes Brooks does start to push his concept beyond the limit, cycling through possibilities ever faster to turn a sweet romance into a more cheesy guessing game.

The performances are of the marginally above average variety, with Reynolds, Banks, Weisz and Fisher doing what is expected and a bit more. Fisher emerges with the most compelling portrayal as April, a woman who drifts in and out of Will's life, sometimes as a witness, sometimes as a participant, and always looking for something more meaningful for both of them, just as she is looking for her lost copy of Jane Eyre.

Definitely, Maybe is definitely bound by romantic comedy rules, but just may be bright enough to create some welcome and original wriggle room.

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Movie Review: Zombieland (2009)

A movie that is not pretending to be anything other than a hip comedy-horror-zombie adventure had better deliver good characters at the centre of the action or else risk being nothing but a satire: Zombieland aces this test with four terrific characters in Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), portraying survivors of the zombie apocalypse who need to also survive each other.

So Mad Cow disease makes the jump and creates Mad Humans, with almost everyone transformed into manic flesh-devouring zombies. These zombies are not the undead -- they are fast, hungry, ugly and just a bloody mess. They are also thankfully easy to kill. The surviving humans who have not yet been infected can use a variety of weapons, from shotguns to banjos (you gotta see the movie to appreciate this) to avoid becoming zombie meals.

Columbus is the nerd type who survived the apocalypse mostly because he enjoys the company of his computer more than the company of people. He is making his was to Columbus, Ohio (hence the name), to check on his parents. Along the way he teams up with Tallahassee, the tough urban-cowboy type who was told by his mother a long time ago that he will eventually be good at something. That something turned out to be killing zombies, a task he accepts with a worrisome relish.

Columbus and Tallahassee eventually encounter Wichita and Little Rock, sassy street-smart sisters who are making their way to California's Pacific Playland, which is rumoured to be zombie-free. The girls twice dupe the guys before the group gels and the foursome team up on their journey west.

The movie quickly settles into a terrifically enjoyable, character-driven road movie, with frequent zombie-killing interludes, and achieves just the right balance between wry comedy and hard-edged action. The four actors play their roles to perfection, with a sparkly smile behind their eyes. They are briefly joined by Bill Murray in a cameo as himself, when the group take refuge in his Beverly Hills mansion.

Eisenberg as Columbus provides the level-headed perspective on the unhinged world, while Harrelson as Tallahassee is very close to being suitably unhinged himself. This is a career-defining Harrelson performance that will long be remembered.

Stone as the tough Wichita nails the dark elder sister who becomes the eventual target of Columbus' affection. Breslin as the younger sister manages the difficult task of portraying the capable 12-year old without the nausea-inducing wise-cracking-smarter-than-she-looks stereotype.

In addition to the four lead performers, director Ruben Fleischer deserves a lot of credit for perfectly pacing the movie and drawing out the strengths of each of the characters. The editing is thankfully coherent and avoids epilepsy-inducing micro-cuts. The music, including crunchy heavy metal from the likes of Metallica, perfectly accompanies the action.

The movie is brave enough and good enough to pull off a running gag relating to Columbus' numbered "rules of survival" for Zombieland. Everytime he introduces us to a rule, it appears as text on the screen, and everytime the rule is put into action, it is also re-displayed on the screen. It's an audacious moviemaking stunt, and it works.

The move thankfully does not shy away from blood, gore, and foul language -- this is not a sanitized family-friendly comedy. The hard edges of the zombie apocalypse are up-front and are gruesome -- which all serves to enhance the impact of the characters and the comedy when they take centre stage.

It all ends with a massive and hyper-enjoyable zombie-killing extravaganza at Pacific Playland, complete with a large clown. It's a fittingly insane ending to a highly engaging movie.






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