Movie Review: The Grifters (1990)

Genre: Neo Noir Crime Drama  

Director: Stephen Frears  

Starring: John Cusack, Anjelica Huston, Annette Bening, J.T. Walsh, Pat Hingle, Charles Napier  

Running Time: 110 minutes  

Synopsis: In Los Angeles, Roy (John Cusack) is a small-time con artist who makes a living in dingy bars. His mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston), only 14 years older than her son, is a career swindler who fixes horserace odds for mobster Bobo (Pat Hingle). Lilly reunites with Roy after a long absence, and immediately disapproves of his girlfriend Myra (Annette Bening). Lilly wants Roy to quit grifting, while Myra wants him to graduate to more lucrative "long cons", leading to a triangular conflict.

What Works Well: The adaptation Jim Thompson's novel builds tense relationships between three desperate con artists, and allows intentional drift to determine their fate. The people are the focus, rather than any grand con, and Anjelica Huston embraces Lilly as a tragic yet still proud career crook content to waste her life serving the mob as long as she can pilfer a few dollars on the side. Annette Bening as Myra is her younger counterpoint, purring with sexuality and pursuing the dream of audacious cons in pursuit of big bucks.

What Does Not Work As Well: Roy, Lilly, and Myra are all distinctly unlikeable, robbing the drama of any heart, a vacuum made worse by a miscast John Cusack who never gets to grips with Roy and fails to match the intensity of his co-stars. In contrast the mobster Bobo and Myra's ex-partner Cole (J.T. Walsh) emerge as smarter and more complex, but they are afterthoughts in this story. Transposing 1940s film noir sensibilities into modern-day Los Angeles is only partially successful, and many scenes of dialogue come across as cringey and simply fake. The script is also careless when needed, including Lilly exposing her trunk-full-of-cash to any passerby.

Key Quote:

Myra: I'm Roy's friend.

Lilly: Yes. I imagine you're lots of people's friend.

Myra (taking a good look at Lilly): Oh, of course, now that I see you in the light, you're plenty old enough to be Roy's mother.

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Movie Review: The Addams Family (1991)

Genre: Comedy  

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld  

Starring: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Dan Hedaya  

Running Time: 99 minutes  

Synopsis: Macabre couple Gomez and Morticia Addams (Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston) live in a gothic mansion, where their children Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley are always up to no good. Gomez misses his long-estranged brother Fester, a sadness that is exploited by cash-strapped lawyer Tully (Dan Hedaya) and his loan shark client Abigail (Elizabeth Wilson). They attempt to pass off Abigail's son Gordon (Christopher Lloyd) as Fester, in order to uncover the location of the Addams treasure.

What Works Well: A perfectly-cast cartoon adaptation, the adventures of the Addams family benefit from an unwavering weird-is-good ethos and a perfectly conceived dark visual theme of cobwebs, graves, and secret chambers. Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston play up the bizarre but unmistakable passion between Gomez and Morticia, while young Christina Ricci steals every scene she's in, always attempting to inflict a new version of harm on her eager brother, both of them earning mom's admiration in the process. Elsewhere Christopher Lloyd projects startling mime-like emotions from under layers of make-up, while the disembodied hand Thing somehow conveys personality and adds frantic comic relief. First time director Barry Sonnenfeld sustains a wicked brand of humour across the episodic quirkiness.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is no more than a flimsy excuse to justify the aesthetics, mood, quips, pranks, and set-pieces. 

Key Quote:

Morticia: Don't torture yourself, Gomez. That's my job.



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Movie Review: 50/50 (2011)

A dramedy about friendship, 50/50 deploys a deft touch to explore the disruptive impacts of a cancer diagnosis.

In Seattle, Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a laid-back twentysomething working for public radio. He is in a tepid relationship with Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard), and best friends with the jovial Kyle (Seth Rogen). Seeking relief from unexplained back pain, Adam is diagnosed with a massive cancerous tumour, and given a 50/50 chance of surviving. His mother Diane (Anjelica Huston) is naturally frazzled.

Adam starts chemotherapy and befriends fellow cancer patients Mitch (Matt Frewer) and Alan (Philip Baker Hall), as well as young and inexperienced therapist Katherine (Anna Kendrick). Rachael tries to be supportive but struggles to cope, while Kyle does his best to keep his best friend's spirits up. Adam maintains his steady emotional state, but his life nevertheless fundamentally changes.

Finding flashes of genuine humour in a film about the devastating effects of cancer is never easy, but 50/50 pulls off the neat trick almost effortlessly. Thanks to pitch perfect performances from Gordon-Levitt and Rogen, the film seeks the warm foundations of friendship, and as Adam's condition worsens, Kyle's presence and determination to be there for his friend emerges as a smiling rock on which an admirable film is built. The Vancouver and Seattle locations add a fresh, rain-cleansed aesthetic.

Director Jonathan Levine, working from Will Reiser's sparkling script, goes looking for the playfulness that helps maintain sanity on the margins of the disease. Adam shaves his hair using Kyle's never-washed body trimmer. Kyle never misses an opportunity to chase women, and encourages Adam to play his ailment as a pick up line when the relationship with Rachael flounders. Katherine knows all the therapy lingo but has no experience in how to use it, and the charming Anna Kendrick perfectly tries too hard and says the wrong thing at almost every opportunity.

And even the secondary characters in Adam's orbit contribute to both the drama and the humour. Mom Diane is already dealing with a husband in docile dementia, and now has to gather up the courage to confront her son's sickness. The effort from both mother and son to meaningfully connect resonates as a worthy sub-plot. Similarly, Adam's unexpected friendship with the elderly Mitch and Alan exposes him to father figures confronting cancer with dignity and no shortage of impishness.

Despite the wit and talent on display some scenes do land in mundane network television hospital drama land, and 50/50 works its way to a too-tidy ending. But this is a laudable and mostly grounded look at coping with a sudden crisis where there are no certain outcomes nor right or wrong answers, just imperfect people doing their best.

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Movie Review: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

A comedy about family and dashed dreams, The Royal Tenenbaums introduces plenty of peculiar characters but drowns them in uninspiring incompetence.

Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) separates from his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston), shocking their three young kids Chas, Richie and the adopted Margot. Each of the children possesses genius talent: Chas in business, Richie in tennis and Margot in writing. Meanwhile, Richie's best friend Eli spends all his hours with the Tenenbaums.

Twenty two years later a financially broke but still upbeat Royal learns that Etheline may be falling in love with her accountant Henry (Danny Glover), and reappears at the family home to try and win back her love and make amends with the children.

The now-grown kids are not doing so well. Richie (Luke Wilson) is a has-been tennis prodigy after suffering an on-court meltdown during a competitive match; Chas (Ben Stiller) has become paranoid after losing his wife in a fire, and the still morose Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) is stuck in a miserable marriage with Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray), and having an affair with Eli (Owen Wilson).

Directed by Wes Anderson and exquisitely photographed by Robert Yeoman, The Royal Tenenbaums features character quantity and compositional splendour but not narrative quality. While the film exhibits all the typical Anderson quirkiness, the various plot threads never weave together, and the story idles rather than thrives.

The opening is promising, and the emerging potential of genius kids offers no shortage of possibilities. But after the time jump the children emerge as adults who never blossomed, and The Royal Tenenbaums has nowhere to go. Despite a game cast there is limited enjoyment to be found in watching multiple wasted lives weighed down by the luggage of broken hearts, decades-long grudges, neglect and unmet expectations, but this is where the film resides, and no amount of attempted dry humour can save it.

The script lacks a cutting edge, the dialogue is listless, and the characters range from boring to irritating, with none likeable. Attempts to inject some drama and humour include two men (other than her husband) in love with Margot, a suicide attempt, and a brief Benny Hill-style madcap chase. None succeed in enlivening proceedings.

The cast members pose rather than act, in typical Anderson fashion precise symmetrical scene composition more important than individual showiness. The Royal Tenenbaums is always intriguing to look at, but more as a series of paintings than an engaging movie.

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The Movies Of Anjelica Huston

All movies starring Anjelica Huston and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

The Grifters (1990)

The Addams Family (1991)

The Player (1992, as herself)

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Blood Work (2002)

Daddy Day Care (2003)

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

50/50 (2011)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

A Woody Allen dramatic comedy mystery, Manhattan Murder Mystery explores Hitchcock-light territory but ignores its own potential and defaults to Allen's traditional turf.

In New York City, married couple Carol and Larry Lipton (Diane Keaton and Allen) finally meet their next-door apartment neighbours Paul and Lilian House (Jerry Adler and Lynn Cohen), who appear to be a jovial and healthy elderly couple. The very next day Lilian drops dead apparently from a heart attack. Larry thinks nothing of it, but Carol finds it weird that Paul does not seem to be grieving much, and suspects foul play. Carol confides in her recently-divorced friend Ted (Alan Alda), and together they start an amateur investigation of Paul, including invading his apartment and tailing his movements.

Larry, a neurotic book editor, is horrified that his wife appears obsessed with spinning theories about a murder that may have never happened, but gradually he is sucked into the intrigue. Glamorous and available book author Marcia Fox (Anjelica Huston), one of Larry's clients, enters the fray and starts sharing her ideas as to what Paul may be up to. When Carol spots someone who resembles Lilian very much alive and staying at a seedy hotel, her suspicions kick into overdrive.

Directed and co-written by Allen, Manhattan Murder Mystery started life as an early draft of what became Annie Hall. Allen considered the story of a couple suspecting foul play too shallow, and not much had changed by 1993. Despite a prevalence of wit, Manhattan Murder Mystery is both over-complicated and under-developed. Allen tips his hat to Hitchcock's  Rear Window, Vertigo and Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai, but his own film is dominated by Larry's insecurity and a perfectly silly final act.

Despite a potential murder, apartment break-ins, dead bodies popping up everywhere, elevator break-downs and Ted lusting after Carol, most of the dialogue exchanges start and end with Larry's numerous anxieties about his life, his deficiencies and his stress points. Funny the first couple of times, staleness sets in by the time Larry and Carol have their umpteenth argument as he insists that they should let the whole matter drop while she breathlessly contends that the snooping should continue.

Meantime, a seemingly complex plot is being woven around the ever suspicious Mr. House, but Allen's script is not designed to flesh out a juicy conspiracy. Too busy with personal angst, the film hurriedly does the minimum possible to explain the actual plot, and rushes to a fairly ridiculous climax unbecoming of supposedly smart New Yorkers.

With the narrative focusing on relationships within a marriage and the stresses that accompany over-familiarity, the cast members are firmly in their domain and deliver fine performances. Allen and Keaton demonstrate a comfortable ease with each other, with Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston adding confident support and Jerry Adler riding the seam between friendly retiree and possible cold blooded killer.

Manhattan Murder Mystery is more about the inherently indisputable insecurities of an intelligent man rather than any attempts to crack a cryptic crime case.

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