Movie Review: No Hard Feelings (2023)

Genre: Raunchy Romantic Comedy  

Director: Gene Stupnitsky  

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Matthew Broderick, Laura Benanti  

Running Time: 103 minutes  

Synopsis: In Long Island, New York, 32 year-old Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) is a financially strapped Uber driver. After her car is repossessed, wealthy couple Allison and Laird Becker (Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick) offer her a Buick in return for seducing their introverted 19 year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman), to help prepare him for college life. What starts out as simple assignment to go on a date and have sex becomes complicated when Maddie and Percy start to get to know each other.

What Works Well: Under the covers of a sex-as-a-transaction raunchy comedy resides a more tender story of stalled lives. Maddie is haunted by a missing father and a questionable responsibility towards her dead mom, while Percy is a victim of bullying and over-parenting. The often witty script finds the funny seams within the interactions between two warm people putting on a cold front, emboldened by Jennifer Lawrence's deft comic timing. The milieu of a working class town overrun by wealthy summer residents adds a humorous edge, augmented by the dubious dynamics between Maddie's married friends Sara and Jim, and Percy's work at a dog shelter.

What Does Not Work As Well: The mental exercise of reversing the gender roles reveals the extent of overreach within the intentionally troublesome foundational premise. Andrew Barth Feldman's young looks adds ickiness to the clandestine seduction plot mechanics, while the creakier scenes betray the limits of improvisation. 

Key Quote:

Maddie (pushily pretending to be interested in adopting a dog): I want a dog right now.

Percy: Well, then, pet ownership may not be for you. You sound a lot like the kind of person we would normally take a dog from.

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Movie Review: The Burning Plain (2008)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Guillermo Arriaga  

Starring: Charlize Theron, Kim Basinger, Jennifer Lawrence  

Running Time: 107 minutes  

Synopsis: The story unfolds in a non-linear structure across several timelines. In New Mexico, Gina (Kim Basinger) and Nick (Joaquim de Almeida) embark on an affair, although they are both married and raising families. They die in a fire at their secluded RV love nest. Gina's daughter Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) and Nick's son Santiago (J.D. Pardo) are unexpectedly drawn to each other by the tragedy. Years later, an accident prompts crop duster Carlos (José María Yazpik) to search for Sylvia (Charlize Theron), a high-end Oregon restaurant hostess stumbling through unsatisfying relationships.

What Works Well: Writer and director Guillermo Arriaga unfurls a lyrically intriguing, multi-generational drama about fortuitous love filling gaps caused by calamitous loss. The fragmented structure spans two environmentally opposing locations (the sun-drenched south and dreary northwest), underlining the universality of sorrow punctured by opportunities for joy. The scattered scenes elegantly self-assemble into a rational whole, with Kim Basinger, Charlize Theron, and Jennifer Lawrence delivering complex performances fueled by pain, disappointment, and the willingness to embrace risk - for better or worse.

What Does Not Work As Well: The non-existent investigation into the RV fire at the heart of the drama is a plot hole that grows in prominence.

Conclusion: Desires, resentments, and regrets also burn through the years.



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Movie Review: Don't Look Up (2021)

An end-of-the-world satire, Don't Look Up holds a mirror to a fractured society where imminent planetary annihilation is a topic of entertainment and debate.

At Michigan State University, astronomy doctoral student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a new large comet, with a trajectory to strike and destroy Earth in 6 months. She alerts her Professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), and they are soon connected with Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), head of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office. They are granted an audience with US President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her Chief of Staff (and son) Jason (Jonah Hill), who don't take the threat seriously.

Randall and Kate take their story to the media, landing at the top-rated television show hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry). Brie's main takeaway is that Randall is a dishy scientist and she sets out to seduce him. Meanwhile the end-of-the-world threat starts to cause panic, but also political divisions, with the science being questioned. When powerful cellular phone and social media tycoon Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance) announces the comet contains precious minerals worth trillions, attempts to destroy it are abandoned in favour of trying to exploit the riches, causing further divisions between sidelined scientists and power-hungry politicians.

Both the funniest thing and the scariest thing about Don't Look Up is that it's all too real. Sure, writer and director Adam McKay cannot resist triple-underlining some of his satirical jabs, but unlike in his previous outing, here the glib attitude is controlled and the hits well outnumber the misses.

The premise of a massive comet about to strike Earth may well be the next cataclysmic event facing humanity, but could also stand in for climate change, the next pandemic, or any other large casualty threat. With recent history as an excellent guide, the reactions portrayed in Don't Look Up are more than believable. Memes, ratings, personal attacks, personality cults, denial of science, obfuscation campaigns, political calculus, and profit motives overwhelm the simple truth, inflicting unnecessary death in large numbers.

In a manic example of cramming more as a representation of what counts as important, side-plots and intentional distractions litter the film, some funnier than others. Brie cannot wait to claim Randall as a sexual conquest, threatening his marriage to June (Melanie Lynskey). President Orlean is embroiled in an ever-worsening scandal related to her Supreme Court appointee (Erik Parillo). A politically incorrect pilot (Ron Perlman) leads the initial suicide mission to the comet. After being shunned by the world and having the comet named after her, Dibiasky befriends skater dude Yule (Timothée Chalamet). And most notably, pop star Riley Bina (Ariana Grande) is going through a romantic break-up and reconciliation, a story deemed much more important than the impending end of the world.

A dream cast sharpens all the satirical angles. Despite the abundant talent pool at his disposal, McKay finds meaningful and memorable roles for each, helped by the long 138 minutes of running time. Leonardo DiCaprio has fun as an anxiety-wracked scientist suddenly thrust into the spotlight and labeled an AILF (Astronomer I'd Like to F**k). Mark Rylance is the other stand-out as the truly creepy (no eye contact) tech tycoon holding all the true power, his line delivery a study in understated bludgeoning. Less successful is Jonah Hill as the nepotistic appointment who actually believes he is smart, his contributions rarely clicking.

Openly flirting with species-get-what-they-deserve resignation, Don't Look Up is depressingly funny. 



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Movie Review: Serena (2014)

A drama and romance with psychological suspense undertones, Serena enjoys a ramshackle rural aesthetic and an ominously beautiful ambience, but catastrophically fails to build emotional resonance. 

In 1929, George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) runs a timber operation in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. His key men include administrator Buchanan (David Dencik) and expert tracker Galloway (Rhys Ifans). The Great Depression is impacting the economy and plans for a national park supported by Sheriff McDowell (Toby Jones) threaten George's business, but he vows to continue tree-cutting operations. In his spare time George enjoys big game hunting and tracks a mythical panther.

On a trip to Boston, George meets and quickly marries Serena (Jennifer Lawrence). Her family used to own a major timber operation in Colorado, and as a 12 year old she miraculously survived a devastating fire. Now she joins George at the Smoky Mountain site and proves herself a capable leader. But a series of mishaps and betrayals place a strain on the newlyweds, while the presence of George's previous lover Rachel (Ana Ularu) and her son inflames Serena's jealousy.

An adaptation of the 2008 novel by Ron Rash, Serena promises an evocative dramatic romance and a descent into tragic turmoil. But despite the presence of enigmatic stars Cooper and Lawrence and some chillingly beautiful cinematography courtesy of Morten Søborg, the film is undermined by a fundamentally unbalanced script by Christopher Kyle. Director Susanne Bier struggles to create any sort of rhythm or empathy, and the second half sinks into a calamitous swamp of flat mishaps.

At 110 minutes, Serena is overrun by an unrelenting checklist of events unsupported by character depth, and becomes a rare example of a film crying out to be longer. The dialogue is sparse, banal, or non-existent, stranding George and Serena into a marriage after barely exchanging 10 words. Scenes of passionate lovemaking fail to compensate, and the couple's central bond remains exceptionally brittle.

Other potentially interesting characters suffer worse. Galloway is teasingly presented as possessing mystical qualities before being abandoned into stock henchman territory, while Rachel barely says a meaningful word, her mere presence having to suffice as a cause for Serena's anger.

The morose music is maddeningly repetitive, as close-ups and hysterics are trotted out instead of substance. Serena promises much, but is quickly lost in the fog-shrouded forests.



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Movie Review: Red Sparrow (2018)

An espionage thriller, Red Sparrow features a strong Jennifer Lawrence performance but is poorly executed.

In Russia, Dominika (Jennifer Lawrence) is a famed Russian ballerina who also looks after her sick mother. When Dominika suffers a seemingly accidental career-ending on-stage leg break, her uncle Ivan (Matthias Schoenaerts) first uses her as bait in an assassination mission and then recruits her into the Red Sparrow spy school, where Russians are trained to be lethal agents with expertise in psychology and seduction.

Under the tutelage of the Matron (Charlotte Rampling), Dominika proves in training that she is as ruthless as her uncle, but resents his manipulation of her life. She is assigned to get close to CIA agent Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), now in Budapest after fleeing from Moscow. Dominika's mission is to get Nate to reveal the identity of a high ranking Russian mole. The two spies get close to each other, and both have to find a way to get what they need in a high stakes game.

Directed by Francis Lawrence and based on a book by Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow is overlong and from about its halfway point, almost incomprehensible. Despite the needlessly prolonged 140 minutes of running time, Lawrence and his screenwriter Justin Haythe spectacularly botch the pacing, tension and key plot points.

Which is a pity, because up until the end of Dominika's training scenes Red Sparrow is a decent enough spy story with a strong character at its core, an intriguing Russian perspective, and a suitably grey, cold aesthetic. Jennifer Lawrence is another plus, fully dedicated to the role, commanding the screen and injecting a steely spine into the role.

It all goes sideways once Dominika and Nate meet. Important facts, key characters and crucial events start to wade in and out of the story with a bewildering lack of cohesion. The plot gets distracted by US Senator's aid Stephanie Boucher (Mary-Louise Parker) being suddenly drop kicked into (and then out of) the story as a wannabe traitor. Dominika's roommate in Budapest Marta is also sketched in and out, contributing seemingly key information in undecipherable snippets.

The Russian station chief in Budapest alternates between doofus and menace, and numerous senior intelligence chiefs on both the American and Russian sides (including Jeremy Irons and Ciaran Hinds) contribute little of value except more shallow obfuscation. Motivations are lost, explanations are skipped, and the film totally loses its way.

Dominika and Nate share no chemistry, and nothing that either of them has to say rings true, because their core business is lying. Several torture ordeals follow, but the impact is absent because the characters are adrift in an emotional void. Somewhere in the scattered debris of the script Dominika is plotting an elaborate ruse that becomes clear in the final scene, and by then the dots are well and truly not worth connecting.

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Movie Review: Passengers (2016)

A touching science fiction romance grappling with human-scaled dilemmas, Passengers is both visually gorgeous and deeply satisfying.

In the distant future, the massive spaceship Avalon is traveling in deep space to the Homestead II planet, carrying 5,000 colonists. The journey is supposed to take 120 years with the passengers asleep in hibernation pods. A mishap occurs when the spacecraft strikes an asteroid, and passenger Jim Preston (Chris Pratt), a mechanical engineer, is awakened 90 years early. Unable to reenter hibernation, Jim has the massive craft to himself as he faces the reality of a lonely existence and a lonelier death to come. With the android bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen) as his only companion, he drops into a severe depression.

Jim becomes infatuated with young writer Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), another passenger in deep sleep. Desperate for companionship, he finally makes the difficult decision to wake her up, pretending that it's another mishap. Once she gets over the shock, Aurora and Jim do fall in love, but there is plenty of trouble ahead for the couple and all the passengers on board.

Directed by Morten Tyldum, Passengers is a deep space science fiction adventure focussed on down-to-earth issues. The film soars with a rare beauty, but never loses sight of it central premise, and explores themes of loneliness, depression, and stalking. The script by Jon Spaihts ventures into the fundamental territory of the true purpose of life in the face of death, and what it means to aspire towards lofty goals only to be forced by external factors into essential, wrenching re-orientations.

The film's pervasive theme is about reacting to dreams rudely knocked out of orbit. Jim's planned life is eternally altered by a technical glitch; he can only rage against the machine, an ultimately unsatisfying pursuit. Aurora is awakened by Jim, and will have to first get over the shock of a future death in space; and then confront the truth that another human had intervened in her trajectory and condemned her to a life and death she never imagined. She can rage against another human, but in the abject loneliness of space, to what end?

The film looks magnificent. Rarely has space or a human-imagined space craft looked more beautiful, and the 3D imagery of the Avalon streaking through the void is awe inspiring. The vessel is cavernous, allowing Tyldum to set the action in a variety of internal locations as the universe passes by outside, and a few space walk excursions add to the diverse visual buffet on display.

Passengers does hurtle into a bit of a technical muddle towards its climax. While the emotional build-up is superb and Tyldum hits all the high notes required for the human drama, the scientific parts of the story are jettisoned into deep space. There is a frantic rush to bang things into shape, and it's all a blur of running around, opening hatches, pointing at random items, pulling levers and putting out fires with condescendingly minimalistic explanations.

Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence competently bring the two central characters to life without necessarily setting the planets on fire. They hold their own amidst all the sleek hardware, and Lawrence handles the emotional ups and down forced on Aurora with a growing maturity. Michael Sheen is ridiculously appropriate as an android bartender, while in a late and relatively brief appearance, Laurence Fishburne adds heft as a crew officer.

The story of Jim and Aurora carries echoes of everyday life, where some some events appear bigger than what an individual can comprehend, while others are clearly the work of a human hand but no less impactful. Finding meaning in the here and now is never easy, and Passengers is a lyrical exploration about dealing with what is, despite what may have been.

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Movie Review: Joy (2015)

Loosely based on the early career of businesswoman Joy Mangano, Joy is a lighthearted drama that benefits from a committed Jennifer Lawrence performance but is also structurally unbalanced and underdeveloped in patches.

Joy (Lawrence) is a financially struggling divorced mother of two young kids, with a chaotic home life. Her parents Terri (Virginia Madsen) and Rudy (Robert De Niro) divorced when she was a young child. Her former husband, lounge singer Tony (Édgar Ramírez) still lives in the basement, although the couple divorced two years prior. Terri is depressed and spends her days watching bad daytime soap operas. Rudy runs an auto shop, but after his latest relationship fails, he also shows up at Joy's house to share the basement with Tony. Her grandmother Mimi (Diane Ladd) is the one person who still believes that Joy, who was highly creative as a child, will make something out of her life.

Rudy starts a new romance with the wealthy Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), triggering a yacht trip during which Joy accidentally cuts her hands mopping broken glass. This leads her to invent the self-squeezing, easy-to-clean miracle mop. With financial support from Trudy and disorganized and argumentative help from Rudy, Tony and her half-sister Peggy (Elisabeth Röhm), Joy starts to manufacture her product at a dubious California facility, and connects with Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), an executive at television shopping network QVC. Joy gets deep into debt to pursue her dream, but achieving sales and success with the miracle mop will still not be easy.

Jennifer Lawrence portrays Joy with an appealing mix of determination and pragmatism. Before she invents the mop, Joy's life is disintegrating around her ears, and she literally has nothing more to lose. Lawrence succeeds in making Joy's fightback towards personal happiness the believable quest of a smart woman tired of living life according to everybody else's rules.

The rest of the film is entertaining without ever threatening to soar towards any peaks of achievement or emotion. Director and writer David O. Russell, again reunited with regular colleagues Lawrence, Cooper and De Niro, is uncharacteristically uneven. The scenes portraying Joy's home life as a madhouse in full swing are good, but there are too many of them. The business oriented narrative, once the mop starts to sell, is slapped together in a rush and remains unconvincing. The film reaches a relatively early highlight with Joy's personal appearance in front of the cameras at QVC. The subsequent events involving a patent battle with unsavoury businessmen in California and Texas are underdeveloped and start to border on glib comedy.

The supporting characters surrounding Joy are more about quirky quantity than in-depth quality. There is plenty to enjoy as Joy's father, mother, grandmother, step-sister, ex-husband and then father's new girlfriend circle her life, either to provide support, peck away at her burgeoning success, or both. Russell accomplishes the difficult task of giving each role its due in relatively few screen minutes, but the abundance of people also means that they all have predictable and linear progressions.

Bradley Cooper as QVC executive Neil Walker suffers the most. Walker's role in Joy's life appears driven more by star pairing than any real conviction, but Cooper does shine in one scene, artistically orchestrating sales behind the live studio cameras. The characters of Rudy, Trudy and Peggy often fall in the cracks between appealingly funny and disruptively conniving.

Joy is an agreeable story of a woman rising from humble roots to achieve success. Ironically, the film itself is better in the disorganized household and less coordinated when it comes to business.

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Movie Review: The Beaver (2011)

A mental illness family drama, The Beaver boasts excellent performances and tackles its grim subject with laudable sensitivity, but ultimately veers towards awkward maudlin territory.

Toy company executive Walter Black (Mel Gibson) is struggling with severe depression. His wife Meredith (Jodie Foster) and two children, including teenage son Porter (Anton Yelchin), try to cope as best as they can. Porter, who wants nothing to do with his sick father, runs a high school side-business writing essays for other students in exchange for money, and is approached by popular cheerleader Norah (Jennifer Lawrence) to write her valedictorian speech.

After being kicked out of the house by Meredith, Walter sinks into the abyss and attempts suicide. He fails, and in an alley dumpster stumbles upon a beaver hand puppet. Adopting an English working class accent, Walter starts to communicate through the beaver, giving the stuffed toy a personality and regaining his ability to function. Things initially look up and Walter moves back home and inspires his company to find success with a new beaver-themed toy. But as Porter starts to get to know Norah's secrets, the beaver puppet fully takes over Walter's life, and his mind is pushed into its darkest corners.

Directed by Foster, The Beaver is a worthwhile exploration of an important subject matter, made more real by Gibson's well publicized battles with alcoholism, manic-depression and public self-destruction. Despite some unnecessary narration that attempts to inject a trace of misplaced humour, for the most part the Kyle Killen script makes interesting choices. Walter's depression is presented as an incapacitating disease, and the hand puppet as an alternative form of communication that helps to separate Walter from himself, allowing him to confront many of his demons. The parallel story of Porter doing his best to escape his father, struggling with his own creeping black clouds and discovering that even popular kids like Norah have a lot to hide, adds a creditable multi-generational dimension to the drama.

While the first two thirds of the film are assured, the final act starts to unravel. Meredith is too demanding, the beaver is too controlling, Porter's world disintegrates and Norah's issues as a rebel with a sad past hiding in cheerleader clothing are just too convenient. Then Walter and the beaver engage in a battle of wills that barely avoids unintentional comic status, only to be followed by violent plot developments out of the schlocky horror drawer. The film never recovers and defaults to a yawn of an ending.

But despite the film's loss of direction, the performances are consistently good. Mel Gibson dominates as Walter and is exceptional in bringing to life a hand puppet with a unique personality of its own. Foster is believable as a wife struggling to hold herself and her family together in the face of a husband's dissolution, while Anton Yelchin is suitably dour as Porter, wanting any fate other than like father, like son. Jennifer Lawrence, one year before her 2012 breakout in The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook, gives Norah plenty of depth and personality beyond the standard troubled potential girlfriend role.

A case of an intriguing idea provided with decent execution, The Beaver has a lot of good things to say but not the legs to necessarily walk all the talk.

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The Movies Of Jennifer Lawrence

All movies starring Jennifer Lawrence and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Burning Plain (2008)

Winter's Bone (2010)

The Beaver (2011)

The Hunger Games (2012)

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Devil You Know (2013)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

American Hustle (2013)

Serena (2014)

Joy (2015)

Passengers (2016)

Red Sparrow (2018)

Don't Look Up (2021)

No Hard Feelings (2023)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: American Hustle (2013)

A celebration of the American Dream's slimy underbelly, American Hustle is a wild ride through 1970s glitz with five fascinating characters.

It's the late 1970s in New York, and Irving (Christian Bale) is an overweight and balding small time con-artist. Irving is no longer living with his volatile wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) but he maintains a relationship with her for the sake of their son. Irving meets and immediately falls in love with scrappy stripper Sydney (Amy Adams). They team up, and with Sydney expertly adopting the haughty persona of the aristocratic Lady Edith Greensly, they move up a league in the con game, convincing investors to give them money in return for phantom lines of credit with non-existent banks.

Irving and Sydney are eventually nabbed by FBI agent Richie (Bradley Cooper), who is intent on making a name for himself by going after larger fish. Richie is instantly smitten with Sydney, and recognizes her talent at convincing people to part with their money. In exchange for leniency, Richie pressures Irving and Sydney to participate in an Arab Sheikh con designed to snare corrupt politicians, and they go after popular New Jersey Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner). But the con unexpectedly spirals to include congressmen, senators and the mob, while Rosalyn's clueless interference threatens to unleash chaos before Irving and Sydney can find a way to extricate themselves from unwanted entrapment charades.

Loosely inspired by the FBI's actual ABSCAM operation, American Hustle cares less about the madcap plot and more about desperate people trying to elbow their way to a better future. The screenplay by Eric Warren Singer and director David O. Russell shines in evoking sympathy for characters that should not deserve any. This is the pursuit of a promised dream in all its guises, and while the crooks, cops and politicians of American Hustle won't make too many dinner invitation lists, over the course of 140 minutes they become remarkably well-rounded personalities true to their own convictions.

Irving knows who he is: a small time con-man, fortunate to have Sydney by his side and content to milk the gullible out of relatively small amounts of money. Sydney is always too smart for Irving, but perhaps too ambitious for her own good, not as aware of her limits and willing to gamble to find out if she can do better.

Richie must be near the bottom of the FBI totem pole to go after characters like Irving and Sydney, and he knows it. He wants to move up and aim higher, an adventure that eventually makes him susceptible to Sydney, who can spot vulnerabilities from across town. Once the Arab Sheikh con is launched Richie wants to believe that he is in control, but Irving is the con artist and Sydney is the master conniver, and Richie is really only getting in the way. But Irving's blind spot, and the one variable that he cannot control, is Rosalyn. Despite her doltish ditziness Rosalyn knows that the control she has over Irving is her one card in life, and she plays it for all its worth, having fun while steering everyone into much deeper trouble.

And then there is Mayor Carmine Polito, a politician genuinely wanting to do good for the people of New Jersey, and who believes that a bit of grease is just part of the process. Carmine is an old fashioned populist, a booster for his state and his people, exploring opportunities for new investments and just a bit wary when suspicious characters like Irving and Richie start sliding briefcases his way.

David O. Russell stylishly packages the film with the garish excesses of the 1970s, where the wild hair and fashions matched the desperation of the clueless. Bathed in yellows and reds, American Hustle is gorgeous to look at, and visually hilarious, with Irving's comb-over, Richie's curls, and Sydney's gowns all committing crimes worse than any of the cons.

The five central performance are exemplary, Russell assembling a remarkable cast of top talent to enjoy the prevailing absurdity. Adams stands out as the most hustle-hungry of the hustlers, while Bale and Cooper bounce of each other as two potentially resourceful men both dangerously close to being labelled losers. Lawrence plays Rosalyn with understated showiness, the woman always ready with all the answers to blame everyone else for everything going wrong, and quick to push the buttons that keep her man properly manipulated.

And in a crucial role Renner provides Polito with impressive good but oily intent, the Mayor's inherent character crucial to undermining the basic premise of the scam. In a small but sharp single scene supporting role, Robert De Niro makes an uncredited appearance to revive the ghosts of all his mobster movies.

Richie's rush to go big means that he is aiming at a dubious target. Irving recognizes in Polito a better version of himself, and builds a genuine rapport with the Mayor. When the con-man and his mark become friends the risks only multiply, and watching it all unravel is boisterous fun.

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Movie Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

The second installment in the adventures of Katniss Everdeen based on the Suzanne Collins novels, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire provides depth to the story but limited forward progression. The movie suffers from middle-child syndrome, lacking a proper opening and leaving the ending for another day. But the film does fulfill its objective of transforming Katniss from naive competitor to potential revolutionary leader.

After surviving the 74th Hunger Games along with fellow District 12 competitor Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) tries to overcome the trauma of the Games by seeking comfort with boyfriend Gale (Liam Hemsworth). However, Katniss and Peeta's act of rebellion in both surviving the Games begins to inspire an uprising in various Districts. President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland) insists that Katniss and Peeta pretend to be true lovers and loyal to the Capitol, as they travel through Panem on a victory tour with chaperon Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) and previous District 12 winner Haymitch (Woody Harrelson).

But with an insurgency spreading, Snow conspires with new game-master Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to throw Katniss and Peeta back into the arena by re-casting the 75th Hunger Games as a battle among previous winners. Facing another duel to the death among 24 competitors to be broadcast live by gleeful presenter Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), Katniss and Peeta forge an alliance with electronics expert Beetee (Jeffrey Wright), the athletic Finnick (Sam Claflin) and the resourceful Johanna (Jena Malone). But these Games will be different, with vicious fights for survival against elements unleashed within the arena, and an unexpected outcome.

Catching Fire is one long bridge from the original premise of the first movie to the climactic battles to come. There is a sense of biding time, as the first half is preoccupied with the Victory Tour, and Katniss beginning to sense that something has changed in Panem. Her small act of defiance has triggered a new, flickering hope throughout the land. With the regime clamping down with heavy handed brutality, Katniss slowly realizes that whether she wants to or not, she is becoming a symbol of rebellion and the public face for a movement that she does not yet understand.

The second half of the movie is an unfortunate retread of the original, Katniss and Peeta thrust back into the arena for another battle to the death. The 75th Games are more of a strategic struggle against the elements, not too different from a rather tiresome episode of television's Survivor.  In succession, a poisonous mist, killer baboons and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds create a litany of "what next" challenges thrown at the competitors, triggering several rounds of frantic running around and arm waving.

As much at Katniss tries to remain the protagonist, there is no escaping the reality that in these Games events happen around Katniss, and members of her alliance are busier than she is fending off the threats. Katniss and Peeta evolve into treasures to be protected rather than problem solvers, and with the central role elevated to a symbol rather than a heroine, Catching Fire begins to flounder.

Outside the arena, Director Francis Lawrence does create a grim environment throughout Panem, colouring the film with depressed greys and relatively pale greens as the winds of violent change start to travel through the land. He also extracts good performances from the cast, Jennifer Lawrence again providing the magnetic centre of the film in an intense, introspective performance full of growth from warrior girl to rebel leader. However, Lawrence does suffer from a Katniss who has to endure a uniformly grim disposition in this episode: she has no opportunity to be anything other than upset or angry.

In support Woody Harrelson makes the biggest impact, as he often does, here giving Haymitch a knowing glint in the eye, offering Katniss the strongest clues that things are different, while still enjoying large quantities of booze at every opportunity. Donald Sutherland delivers a standard evil hissing dictator performance, but Philip Seymour Hoffman looks a bit lost, his attempt at conveying Plutarch's mysterious agenda coming across as rather disinterested. Tucci is as over the top as can be expected from an intentionally aggravating television show host.

The actors representing the three boys in Katniss' life hover around Lawrence like dark planets orbiting the sun. Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth and Sam Claflin are all steady, with Claflin the most animated and least dewy eyed, but all three are quite overshadowed by the girl in the middle of their lives. The revolution in Panem may be catching fire, but the career of Jennifer Lawrence is burning hotter than the flames in the streets of the Districts.

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Movie Review: Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

A romantic drama with comic seasonings, Silver Linings Playbook mixes modern mental health problems with traditional romance ingredients. With likeable lead characters who remain true to their deficiencies, the movie resonates with honest emotion.

After an eight month stay, Pat (Bradley Cooper) is released from a mental hospital and into the care of his parents, mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver) and father Patrick (Robert De Niro). Pat is bipolar, his wild mood swings compounded by an inability to control his anger or filter what comes out of his mouth. He was admitted to the psychiatric facility after surprising his wife Nikki with another man, and beating him senseless. Pat is now intent on getting better, and takes up reading and exercise in the hope that he will get back together with Nikki, although she still has a restraining order on him.

Pat does not connect well with his unemployed father Patrick, who is obsessed with the Philadelphia Eagles, and is running a bookie operation out of his living room. Patrick is also obsessive-compulsive and extremely superstitious when it comes to the fortunes of the Eagles. Doing his best to stay away from the house, Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a police officer's widow. She has a sex addiction problem, is carrying the label of local slut, and is equally lacking in basic social skills. But Tiffany knows Nikki, and promises to deliver a letter to her from Pat if he helps her train for a dance competition.

Silver Linings Playbook is not lacking in contrived moments and unnecessary dramatics, director David O. Russell, working from his own adaptation of the Matthew Quick novel, unable to avoid all the over-ripe fruit. The climax at the dance competition and the final resolution are tired rehashes of worn elements from many trite romantic movies, complete with the compulsory critical misunderstanding threatening the budding romance.

And other than Patrick Sr., the supporting characters are there more for elementary comic relief than any narrative imperative. Weaver as Pat's mother contributes little, Chris Tucker is trotted out at regular intervals as another psychiatric patient slipping unnoticed out of the hospital, and Pat's friends, the interestingly matched Ronnie and Victoria (John Ortiz and Julia Stiles), are embroiled in an engaging tension but are also underused.

But the movie comes to life whenever either Pat or Tiffany are on the screen, which is most of the time. Both characters are suffering from mental and psychological issues, and both are aware of most, but refreshingly not all, of their challenges. Pat knows that his mood swings need to be brought under control and that proximity to his parents does not necessarily help, but he is labouring under the misconception that there is a relationship to be salvaged with Nikki. Meanwhile, Tiffany is fully alive to the destructive effects of her manic need for sexual partners (and its causes), but that does not mean that she can control herself. Pat and Tiffany are not the type of people usually populating romances, and their quirks, struggles, weaknesses and failures elevate Silver Linings Playbook to an attractive adventure about falling in love while carrying heavy psychological luggage.

Bradley Cooper continues to prove his versatility with a performance that is determined, charismatic and sometimes aggressive, Pat struggling as much against himself as against the outside world. After Winter's Bone and The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence nails her first adult role, portraying Tiffany as a young woman who has already seen too much of life, experienced self-inflicted emotional pain, and yet sees enough hope through the fog of resignation to aim for a path out of her desolation. Lawrence may just be the most promising young actress in Hollywood, her screen persona already taking shape as a mixture of confident smarts, dark allure, severe honesty, and determined courage to overcome circumstance and ever-present self-doubt.

Robert De Niro is excellent if a bit excessive as Pat Sr., his mental health also quite tilted but channelling his peculiarities towards annoying habits and arcane notions rather than propensity for violence. There is an excellent chance that with enough medications Pat Jr. will end up like his father, a sufficient enough incentive to break the cycle by finding a woman willing to counteract his aberrations with some of her own. Silver Linings Playbook is ultimately not about finding the right play, but about selecting the right teammate to properly enjoy the game of life.

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Movie Review: The Hunger Games (2012)

The first book in the Suzanne Collins trilogy is given a grand screen treatment, and delivers an astounding experience. The Hunger Games is a triumph of soul and style over a brutal subject matter.

In a dystopian future, the concept of reality television has extended to a real-life on-screen competition-to-the-death among children. Every year, all of the12 subservient Districts of Panem (a future North America) are compelled to send a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to compete in a televised death match until one child survivor is declared the winner of what are termed The Hunger Games. The competition is held for the viewing pleasure of the masses, including the ruling elite who reside in the Capitol. The Hunger Games are a depraved punishment and remembrance ritual for a destructive civil war in which the Districts rebelled against the Capitol, currently ruled by a cold hearted President (Donald Sutherland).

In District 12, a mining outpost and the furthest and poorest District, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to participate in The Hunger Games to save her randomly selected younger sister. Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a baker's son, is the other District 12 representative. Katniss has strong survival skills and is an expert archer, while Peeta is less inventive but has strong upper body strength. After some rudimentary training and mentoring by the semi-drunk Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), District 12's only previous winner, Katniss and Peeta start the merciless tournament against 22 other kids, some of whom have trained their entire young lives for this competition.

Creating an enthralling cinematic experience out of a potentially repellent premise was never going to be easy, but director Gary Ross, co-writing with Collins and Billy Ray, pulls it off with panache. Ross allows his cameras to catch only glimpses of the horror of children killing children, and focuses instead on the unfolding human drama of Katniss discovering the world, herself, and hints of her future.

Katniss of course kills only when she has to and in self-defense, and has to resort to quick thinking and brains over brawn to rescue herself from several back-to-the-wall situations. She is also the beneficiary of the kindness of others, survival requiring a sometimes unexpected helping hand.

The Hunger Games is also a celebration of story ahead of special effects. While there are plenty of eye-popping computer-generated visuals, they never dominate and are firmly in third place behind the powerful narrative and interesting, colourful and mostly well-defined characters.

Jennifer Lawrence is the heart of The Hunger Games, and she carries the film gracefully while creating an enduring heroine. In an uncanny extension of her role in Winter's Bone Lawrence is all defiant ability masking deep insecurities while pushing back against a rising tide of panic at her destiny. The other child competitors do achieve individuality but without much depth. Josh Hutcherson is several notches below Lawrence and is unable to convincingly embody an emerging warrior with romantic intentions.

Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland provide the supporting adult heft, Harrelson particularly memorable as the could-not-care-less Haymitch is sparked by the potential that he sees in Katniss. Elizabeth Banks and Stanley Tucci add interest as two over-the-top supporting characters, Banks a fashion catastrophe as the over-elaborately coiffed District 12 chaperon and Tucci as a most aggravating evolution of today's television talk show host.

The Hunger Games presents a chillingly unpleasant but imaginable dark future. While the horrors multiply, hope persists that the pure of heart will leave their mark.

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