Movie Review: Green Room (2015)

A horror siege thriller, Green Room recycles familiar elements into a blotchy package.

The underground punk band Ain't Rights, including bassist Pat (Anton Yelchin) and guitarist Sam (Alia Shawkat), is touring the Pacific Northwest in a beat-up van, not even making enough money for gas. Their fortunes look even dimmer when their latest gig is cancelled and replaced by a performance at a diner in front of totally disinterested patrons. In desperation they accept a show at a remote clubhouse frequented by neo-Nazi skinheads.

The crowd is rough but the performance is ok and the band is about to depart with a decent payout when they stumble onto a violent crime scene in the ramshackle green room. Ain't Rights along with the victim's friend Amber (Imogen Poots) now know too much and find themselves in hostile surroundings, locked up in the waiting room as the skinheads' leader Darcy (Patrick Stewart) plots a cover-up.

A low-budget independent production, Green Room provides a skinhead spin to the well-worn horror cliches of bumpkin dangers lurking in the woods and a small group beleaguered in a compound with help out of reach.

The premise of punk rock as an aspirational occupation for the scrappy protagonists introduces a whiff of originality to the first third of the film, but then fades away as a narrative thread. Director and writer Jeremy Saulnier struggles to concoct enough incidents to stretch the running time to 95 minutes, and Green Room suffers from the familiar ailment of utter incompetence by the bloodthirsty attackers at every crucial juncture. Darcy's troops appear to have the numbers, weapons, savagery and terrain familiarity to end the siege within a few minutes, but always find lame excuses not to do so.

Some character depth would have helped, but Green Room almost goes out of its way to keep all the key people on both sides of the siege as flat as possible. Despite bassist Pat and skinhead leader Darcy emerging as the leaders on both sides of the divide, the film ends with precious little revealed about either of them, the talents of Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart quite wasted. The rest of the cast members, particularly the interchangeable attackers, suffer even worse non-definition.

The few positives include some dry humour, limited but effective gore, and fun with microphone feedback and attack dogs. Stylistically the film is frequently dark and muddy, the dialogue often mumbled or obscured by loud music. The Green Room is caught in the land of grunge, after the music stopped.

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Movie Review: 5 to 7 (2014)

A romantic drama, 5 to 7 explores a perfect love that just happens to thrive in the most imperfect of circumstances.

In New York City, Brian (Anton Yelchin) is a fledgling writer in his early twenties still waiting for his first publishing break. In front of the St. Regis Hotel he spots Arielle (Bérénice Marlohe), and it's love at first sight for both of them. Arielle is French and nine years older than Brian, which he does not mind. But with the relationship quickly turning serious, he is shocked when she reveals that she is contentedly married to diplomat Valéry (Lambert Wilson) and the mother of two young children.

Arielle educates Brian about the French custom of accepting affairs within marriage, as long as all parties are discreet and respectful, with the extramarital couple traditionally only meeting from 5 to 7 in the afternoon. Brian adapts to the concept, proceeds with the affair within the rules, and even gets to meet Valéry, his lover Jane (Olivia Thirlby), and Arielle's two children. The unusual arrangement completely rattles Brian's father Sam (Frank Langella), but his mother Arlene (Glenn Close) is more understanding. Brian's career catches a break, but as he falls ever so deeply in love with Arielle his delicate romantic arrangement starts to teeter.

Written and directed by Victor Levin, 5 to 7 benefits from exploring a romance with a few relatively original twists. While the New York City setting is familiar, Brian and Arielle navigate around differences in age and culture, her marital status and quite progressive views about the role of love and lovers in life. For long stretches Levin sustains interest not so much because of the love story, but because of where the romance fits into Arielle's life.

Despite the affair unfolding through Brian's eyes, Arielle emerges as a much more compelling character, and Bérénice Marlohe makes the film her own. Seemingly effortlessly, Arielle juggles the role of lover, mentor in affairs of the heart, wife and mother, and Levin succeeds in creating a captivating and stylish woman who can make a young man believe in alternative passion arrangements.

Less convincing is the concept of Arielle falling in love with Brian. Whatever charms the struggling writer possesses to turn the eye of a sophisticated woman are left off the screen, and Brian remains a rather whiny if infatuated young man. Anton Yelchin is dewy eyed but also miscast, unable to elevate the role beyond the star-struck American.

Brian's parents provide the comic relief and a contrast in bridges across the cultural divide. His mother Arlene is more than willing to give the liaison with a married woman every opportunity to thrive. His father Sam remains skeptical, barely tolerating Arielle's Frenchness, let alone the age difference and her marriage. Glenn Close and Frank Langella make for a fine married couple thriving in their eccentricities.

5 to 7 unravels in its final third, and the last 15 minutes are dominated by narration, Levin defaulting to describing rather than showing emotions. A great love can survive a lot, but it finally trips on a writer with too many words at his disposal.

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Movie Review: Rudderless (2014)

A drama set in the world of grief and music, Rudderless tackles the seemingly insurmountable difficulties of carrying on with life after a crushing family tragedy.

College student Josh (Miles Heizer) is killed in an on-campus school shooting, sending his father Sam (Billy Crudup), a marketing executive, into a depression. Two years later, Sam has quit his job, moved two hours out of town, is living on a boat and working as a lowly painter. His ex-wife Emily (Felicity Huffman) drops off some of Josh's old items, and Sam stumbles onto song recordings and lyrics that Josh was working on.

He performs one of Josh's songs during open mic night at The Trill tavern, attracting the attention of Quentin (Anton Yelchin), a young man who insists that they team up and perform together. Sam is reluctant but eventually yields, and gradually the band Rudderless is formed, gaining local prominence with the help of music shop owner Del (Laurence Fishburne). Sam helps Quentin mature as a man, but with the reappearance of Josh's old girlfriend Kate Ann (Selena Gomez), the events of the past are about to again rock Sam's life.

The directorial debut of William H. Macy (who also has a small role as the tavern's owner), Rudderless combines music and mourning as it ventures into rarely explored territory. The world of hurt in the shadow of a mass shooting makes for difficult story telling material, but Macy along with screenwriters Jeff Robison and Casey Twenter construct a highly watchable and heartfelt drama.

The songs are of the soulful soft rock white-man-with-a-guitar variety, not nearly as unique as the film makes them out, and the musical performance segments are more numerous and longer than they need to be. Macy finds better traction when the focus is on Sam, and then in the dynamic between Sam and Quentin. Josh's ghost is never far away from Sam's new stripped-down life, much as he wants to avoid it, and his interactions with Quentin and the other young men of the band are built on a rickety foundation of deep hurt.

Without ever showing what happened at the school shooting, the film drops steady hints that no matter how many houses he paints, beers he drinks or songs he sings, Sam will not be able to avoid confronting the past. His own actions inadvertently but finally open the door for recent history to storm in, and it is as painful as Sam knew it would be. The final act hits some, but not all, the high notes it aims at, as this chapter of the grief journey maybe ends too tidily.

Rudderless rides on a majestic Billy Crudup performance as he revisits the musical world that made him Almost Famous. Here his performance is built on active emotional hide and seek, and Crudup perfectly captures a grieving father bottling up a yearning to scream at himself and the world. Anton Yelchin is all about the intensity of youth making something happen out of the haziest opportunity. One of the film's strengths is in only hinting at Quentin's troubled past and present, Sam's help remaining at the superficial level, the damaged ex-father not equipped to re-assume fatherly duties.

Rudderless is about new beginnings setting sail, but only after catching the winds of the past.

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