Movie Review: Windfall (2022)

Genre: Crime Thriller  

Director: Charlie McDowell  

Starring: Jason Segel, Lily Collins, Jesse Plemons  

Running Time: 92 minutes  

Synopsis: A burglar (Jason Segel) rummaging through a high-end vacation home in the California desert is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the owners, a husband (Jesse Plemons) and wife (Lily Collins) couple. The husband is a wealthy technology capitalist, the wife runs his charity organizations, and now the burglar holds them hostage and tries to extract a large sum of cash.

What Works Well: The single location benefits from the rustic beauty of a dream vacation home nestled in a desert hosting orange groves. The restless music carries a dynamic edge, and all three central performances are committed to the quirkiness of the premise.

What Does Not Work As Well: An idea in search of a movie, this chamber thriller is probably more suited to the stage. Despite the short running length, the cinematic execution is flabby and gets caught in long stretches of irrelevant talkiness and silent pauses, the script bypassing dramatic momentum by only nibbling at character backgrounds. The ending is therefore devoid of substance and defaults to shock for shock's sake, decoupled from coherence.

Key Quote:

Burglar: I want $150,000.

Husband: Do you think that's enough?

Wife: Yeah, I think you're probably gonna want more than that.

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Movie Review: Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)

Genre: Biographical Crime Drama

Director: Joe Berlinger

Starring: Zac Efron, Lily Collins

Running Time: 108 minutes

Synopsis: In Seattle of 1969, college student and single mother Liz Kendall (Lily Collins) falls in love with the charismatic Ted Bundy (Zac Efron), an aspiring law student. They move in together and over the next few years Liz pays scant attention to news reports of women being brutally murdered. She is surprised when Ted is arrested in Utah and charged with aggravated kidnapping. He professes innocence and Liz wants to believe him, but murder charges follow in Colorado then Florida. Ted faces a series of trials and attempts several escapes, as Liz's confidence in the man she loves slowly erodes.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Kendall's book reveals just how blind love can be, and the ability of murderous psychopaths to hide in plain sight. Zac Efron blows past his lightweight screen persona to reveal a cogent dark side, and Lily Collins is steady as a woman struggling against looming truths that threaten to destroy all her conceptions. The 1970s are recreated with convincing brown-dominated wardrobes, hairstyles, and aesthetics.

What Does Not Work As Well: Bundy's victims are abstract afterthoughts (until a list in the credits), and director Joe Berlinger errs on the side of demonstrating a killer's magnetism at the expense of his brutality (expressed in the title, but barely present in the movie). The imbalance buttresses Liz's incredulity, but ignores half the story. In any event, as the film evolves into a courtroom farce with Ted defending himself, Liz fades into the background.

Conclusion: A quiet affirmation of disbelief, but narrative blindspots degrade the drama's impact.



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Movie Review: Mank (2020)

An inside-Hollywood drama, Mank is the story of the writer behind the legendary Citizen Kane script. The film is visually splendid but carries narrow appeal.

It's 1940, and RKO studios provide wonderkid filmmaker Orson Welles (Tom Burke) with complete artistic freedom to mount his next project. He hires washed-up and unemployed writer Herman "Mank" Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) to pen a screenplay. Mank is recovering from a broken leg suffered in a car crash, and Welles houses him in a secluded ranch, theoretically free of booze and distractions. Mank also agrees that Welles will receive sole writing credit for the completed script.

Under pressure to deliver in 60 days and assisted by secretary Rita Alexander (Lily Collins), Mank writes a script inspired by the life of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Flashbacks reveal Mank's history in Hollywood starting in 1930. He encounters powerful moguls Louis B. Meyer (Arliss Howard) and Irving Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley), as well as actress Marion Davis (Amanda Seyfried) and her much older husband Hearst (Charles Dance). Mank's principled opposition to Meyer's meddling in politics, plus his excessive drinking, gradually dim his Hollywood status.

As the Citizen Kane script nears completion, Mank recognizes it as his best ever work, and decides he does indeed deserve credit for writing it.

The geeky debate as to whether Welles or Mankiewicz are more responsible for Citizen Kane's greatness is a sub-niche topic for a small group of cineastes. Here director David Fincher, working from a script by his father Jack, attempts to transform the writing process into a flamboyant drama. The production quality is high, but predictably, the material is too thin to sustain the overly-ambitious 131 minutes. 

Mank therefore meanders into a mini history of 1930s Hollywood, throwing in mundane socialist versus capitalist political shenanigans, routine power plays by the rich and influential, and one obscure cinematographer who takes it all too seriously. The flashbacks carry casual interest but dominate what is supposed to be the main plot. In the present-day scenes Mank's writing just flows forth, and beyond a childish game about smuggling alcohol to keep the juices flowing, few genuine insights are offered into the creative process.

Gary Oldman saves the day with a performance full of self-awareness, but even he is weighed down by the incessant wittiness of a writer who has a clever retort or quip for every situation. The period details recreate a booming Hollywood filled with schemers and dreamers, and the black and white cinematography courtesy of Erik Messerschmidt is crisp and grandiose, but the intended salute to Citizen Kane's visual style overwhelms Mank's much smaller story.

Mank is beautiful to look at, but this packaging is mightier than the pen.



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Movie Review: The English Teacher (2013)

A romantic comedy-drama, The English Teacher explores personal dreams, disappointments and disasters in a quaint milieu.

In small-town Kingston, Pennsylvania, Linda Sinclair (Julianne Moore) is a fortysomething high school English teacher. A lover of books since childhood, Linda is unmarried and has no prospects. Instead she dedicates her life to instilling a love of literature in her students. Former star student Jason Sherwood (Michael Angarano) returns to Kingston, having graduated from New York University but despondent that his first theatrical script, The Chrysalis, was not produced. 

Jason is now yielding to pressure from his father Tom (Greg Kinnear), a doctor at the local hospital, to enrol in law school. But Linda is determined to keep Jason's playwright dream alive and teams up with drama teacher Carl Kapinas (Nathan Lane) to produce The Chrysalis as a high school production. But the play's ending may be too downbeat for students and their parents, and an unexpected moment of lust during rehearsals changes everything.

A modest independent production, The English Teacher frolics with a faux-haughty vibe underlined by Fiona Shaw's literary narration. Director Craig Zisk respects the unassuming ambitions of the script by Dan and Stacy Chariton, maximizing enjoyment from the idyllic small-town setting, Linda's schoolteacher perspective on all the men in her life (they all get evaluated and graded with on-screen scribbles), and a steady, but appropriately marginally theatrical, Julianne Moore performance. 

The Charitons pack their story with parallel tales of unfulfilled expectations. Linda never found her man, Jason could not get his play produced in New York, and drama teacher Carl never made it as an actor. Now Linda and Carl want to vicariously find their triumphant moments through Jason's play, but trampling on the first work of a sensitive young man carries the potential for calamity and humour.

The film avoids most rom-com cliches and explores opportunities for romance, jealousy and lust from the other side of 40. Linda may be alone but she is not done looking for Mr. Right, except that at her age, she is meeting all the Mr. Wrongs. Young, passionate and emotionally broken Jason bursts back into her life, presenting an opportunity for a self-affirming reclamation project if nothing else.

Of course with Jason sowing wild oats and moving on to frolicking with women his age, including student production lead actress Halle (Lily Collins), Linda finds herself dealing with uncontrollable pangs of jealousy, leading to frazzled, potentially career-threatening actions. It's time for The English Teacher to let her hair down and take some risks, even it means the pepper spray has to come out.

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Movie Review: Stuck In Love (2012)

A romance with wry humour and low-key drama, Stuck In Love is a clever look at multiple emotional entanglements within one family. 

It's been two years, but published writer Bill Borgens (Greg Kinnear) is still not over the break-up of his marriage to Erica (Jennifer Connelly), who has moved on and remarried. Bill's two children are both aspiring writers: Samantha (Lily Collins) is in college and about to have her first book published, while high schooler Rusty (Nat Wolff) is big fan of Stephen King.

Bill enjoys casual sex with married neighbour Tricia (Kristen Bell) but continues to hope Erica will come back to him. Samantha is deeply hurt by her parents' divorce and not on speaking terms with her mother, but her cynical attitude towards romance is tested when she meets classmate Louis (Logan Lerman). Meanwhile, Rusty is encouraged by his father to take more emotional risks and pursues a relationship with troubled classmate Kate (Liana Liberato).

In a compact 96 minutes, writer and director Josh Boone weaves three romances into one pleasing narrative. Stuck In Love avoids all the cliches associated with traditional romantic comedies, and instead focuses on well-rounded characters, emotional risk-taking, the healthy pursuit of sex, and perilous pathways to the pleasures of love. The agile pacing is augmented by bright dialogue and good balance between humour and poignancy.

Bill Borgens raised his two children to be writers, and Boone anchors his three protagonists in a literary milieu. Combined with a twee musical selection, Stuck In Love sometimes overreaches into excessively arty terrain. But Bill, Samantha and Rusty are likeable and authentic characters defined by pragmatic foibles, and their roller-coaster love lives swoosh past the script's weaknesses.

Daring to venture towards unfamiliar feelings is the underlying theme unifying the three stories. After witnessing the disintegration of her parents' marriage, Samantha has withdrawn into a hard shell, seeking only shallow sexual gratification and studiously avoiding any meaningful relationships. Louis keeps knocking on her heart until she yields to the potential for caring. Rusty is prodded by his Dad to enrich his life experiences, and is soon throwing a deserved punch and winning the heart of the popular but troubled Kate. And Bill himself has to decide if two years is long enough to wait for Erica as he tiptoes into the world of on-line dating with help from the cheeky Tricia.

In a radiant performance Lily Collins exudes confidence and fragility as Samantha's core beliefs are challenged. Greg Kinnear as the family head teases out the complexities of a husband coping with his own grief and a father barely keeping up with his children's needs. The other cast members all leave an impression and grasp their moments to shine.

The resolutions lean towards over-tidy, but Stuck In Love delivers three-for-one charm.



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Movie Review: To The Bone (2017)

A drama about the tribulations of anorexia, To The Bone explores the horrors of a cruel disease.

In Los Angeles, 20 year old budding artist Ellen (Lily Collins) suffers from anorexia. After her latest fruitless in-patient stint she returns to the home of stepmom Susan (Carrie Preston). Ellen's dad is never around and her mother Judy (Lili Taylor), now a lesbian, has moved to Phoenix with a new partner. Stepsister Kelly (Liana Liberato) gets along with Ellen but cannot understand her ailment. 

Susan arranges for Ellen to attend the clinic of well-regarded Doctor Beckham (Keanu Reeves), and Ellen reluctantly settles in for a 6-week stay. The other patients include Megan (Leslie Bibb), who is dealing with a surprise pregnancy, and the talkative Luke (Alex Sharp), an English ballet dancer making progress to overcome his disorder. Megan and Luke start to care for each other, but her aversion to eating persists and she continues to waste away.

Writer and director Marti Noxon strides into the world of a silent affliction and empathetically portrays victims struggling against a mental disorder visibly destroying their own good health. To The Bone is not an easy watch, Noxon not shying away from the haunting damage inflicted on the human body by an infuriating disease. Through a combination of diet and make-up Lily Collins looks appropriately malnourished, and the little tics and tricks of anorexics pockmark Ellen's days: incessant exercising, spitting out food, and constantly measuring her arm's diameter, obsessed with getting it smaller.

It is also a disease with multiple, complex, psychological and poorly understood causes, and no easy cures. And here To The Bone can only go so far before hitting a narrative wall. Ellen's dour behaviour and snarky attitude barely change throughout the film. Without drawing straight lines Noxon sequentially reveals various childhood trauma snippets: dysfunctional parenting, societal pressures, a difficult adolescence, and a tragic reaction to one of her drawings are posited in sketch form with truncated elaboration.

Beckham's clinic is presented as a generally chill hangout with minimal rules, and in fact the doctor is a distant presence, Luke instead providing most of the prodding towards better eating habits. Ellen's cinematic journey stalls, ploughing the same emotional and mental space, yielding a ponderously paced viewing experience.

Near rock bottom both in terms of Ellen's health and the film's heartbeat, the final chapter finally brightens up with a visit to Ellen's mother in Phoenix. Here Noxon finally injects a jolt of spirit, but it's almost too late. A brave excursion into a difficult topic, To The Bone is hampered by weary passivity.



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Movie Review: Inheritance (2020)

A psychological drama with suspense elements, Inheritance posits a bizarre premise and disappears into yawning logic gaps.

Wealthy businessman Archer Monroe dies and leaves his estate to his wife Catherine (Connie Nielsen), $20 million to his son Congressman William Monroe (Chase Crawford), and only $1 million to his daughter, Manhattan District Attorney Lauren Monroe (Lily Collins). But she also receives a cryptic video message and is shocked to discover Archer kept a prisoner (Simon Pegg) in an underground bunker for 30 years. 

The chained man claims to be Morgan Warner, Archer's friend from their younger days, kept in captivity because he knows a secret that could destroy the Monroes. Now he toys with Lauren to try and gain her sympathy and his freedom. Lauren has to sort out truths from lies and protect her family's legacy.

Written by Matthew Kennedy and directed by Vaughn Stein, Inheritance is an independent production stretching too far to unearth surprises. The story foundation of a business tycoon secretly imprisoning a foe for 30 years in a private bunker is wobbly enough to begin with. The subsequent actions of the supposedly smart and idealistic Lauren are well beyond any logic sphere. Morgan Warner as the antagonist, remarkably sharp and healthy after 30 years underground, also skips past authenticity.

The script is littered with loose ends. Lauren is supposedly lead prosecutor on a massive high-profile financial fraud case. She also has a husband and daughter. All of her career and family obligations are abandoned, as are the halfhearted attempts to link some of Warner's revelations about Archer's secrets to Lauren's present life. Meanwhile, brother William's reelection campaign goes nowhere, while corruption in politics is treated as shock news.

Confronted by the script's internal contradictions, the cast members unsurprisingly flounder, Lily Collins struggling to convince as Lauren frustratingly makes every wrong move just to prolong the mystery. Simon Pegg appears to enjoy a different kind of role as the canny victim hiding secrets, and gradually emerges as the one bright spot.

Inheritance loses more credibility with every new revelation, and as they tumble out of the closets, even the skeletons are rolling their eyes.



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Movie Review: Love, Rosie (2014)

A romance with tinges of both humour and drama, Love, Rosie explores an elusive love between two life-long friends.

In England, Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Claflin) have been best friends since childhood. Grounded and perfectly matched, they both have deeper feelings for each other but cannot properly express them. In the final year of school, Alex finds a girlfriend in the conceited Bethany (Suki Waterhouse), while Rosie has a clumsy one-night stand with jock Greg (Christian Cooke).

She ends up pregnant, disrupting her plans to attend college in Boston, where Alex pursues a medical education and finds a new live-in girlfriend. They stay in touch but apart, never quite connecting at the right time in their lives, as Greg re-enters Rosie's life and Alex has to deal with a pregnancy of his own.

A winning Lily Collins performance enlivens a sweet romance spanning over a decade between two souls stumbling in pursuit of fulfilment. Not quite a romantic comedy nor a drama, Love, Rosie strikes its own tone with a middle ground of pragmatism, director Christian Ditter and writer Juliette Towhidi allowing the obstacles of life to speak for themselves.

Setting the film apart is an absence of dumb decisions that often beset star-crossed lovers. Rosie and Alex are weighed down by their childhood pre-adolescent friendship, and find it naturally difficult to cross the threshold into purposeful adult lovers. From that foundation all their choices make sense as they set out into the world looking for an alternative, good-enough, match.

Physically separated by an ocean and emotionally in different places, the film captures the threat of erosion that can beset the closest friendships. Alex finds a succession of icy women brimming with ego and style instead of practical substance, and Rosie is preoccupied first with a baby then Greg's return offering the promise of stable fatherhood to young Katie.

Sam Claflin's Alex channels a young Hugh Grant. His rather truncated arc gives way to decent subplots favouring Rosie's evolution, including her dream to enter the hotel business and daughter Katie following in her mother's footsteps.

Rosie and Alex mature as people but still encounter more hurdles to happiness, and Towhidi does throw at least one curve too many at the would-be lovers as the years pass by. Love, Rosie could have been 10 minutes shorter, but is otherwise a romance well earned.

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The Movies Of Lily Collins

All movies starring Lily Collins and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Blind Side (2009)

Mirror Mirror (2012)

Stuck In Love (2012)

The English Teacher (2013)

Love, Rosie (2014)

Rules Don't Apply (2016)

To The Bone (2017)

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)

Inheritance (2020)

Mank (2020)

Windfall (2022)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Rules Don't Apply (2016)

A drama, comedy and romance set in Hollywood, Rules Don't Apply is a wayward and tonally scattered story.

It's the late 1950s, and young starlet Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins) arrives in Hollywood with her mother Lucy (Annette Bening) to film a screen test and join reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes' RKO Studios. Marla's driver is Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), and after many weeks of classes and rehearsals, it becomes obvious to Marla and Lucy that very few people have ever met Hughes. Lucy departs back to Virginia, while Marla stays behind and flirts more openly with Frank.

Marla eventually meets the sociophobic Hughes (Warren Beatty), and he seems to like her, although he is preoccupied with corporate battles involving his airline TWA. Hughes also meets Frank, and brings him into his inner circle as a confidant. The relationship between Marla and Frank is hampered by his commitment to his hometown girlfriend, while Hughes suddenly expresses devotion to Marla, but she is drunk and he has devious reasons to find a wife in order to fend off corporate predators.

Directed and written by Beatty, Rules Don't Apply is an unfortunate mess. While the recreation of Los Angeles of the late 1950s and early 1960s makes for attractive locales, the story is a muddled bore, and the one obvious attribute is indecision over what the film is meant to be about, or why.

The first act appears to be Marla's story, with Lily Collins in excellent wide-eyed but mischievous form. Hughes does not feature at all in this chapter. Marla then fades as the perspective shifts more towards Frank, his dream of a grand real estate deal and his admittance into Hughes' bizarre world. Then the final chapter becomes all about Hughes and his eccentricities, Beatty belatedly placing himself at centre stage as the film becomes an examination of a billionaire's erratic behaviour.

The film ends with both Marla and Frank incidental to the story of a befuddled businessman's seemingly harmless eccentricities. Marla's late and triumphal re-entry with a new no nonsense attitude does not to dispel the sense that Beatty had no overarching vision.

At a running length of 126 minutes the pacing is lazy and the editing sloppy, with one mostly static scene between Hughes and Marla dragging on for an astounding amount of time, sucking all momentum out of the film. A barbarians-at-the-gate subplot about rival businessmen seemingly scheming to take over TWA contributes frequent interruptive and noisy distraction from the already fragmented narrative, but is barely explained and never expounded upon.

In addition to Annette Bening disappearing early, the cast features a star in every role, with the likes of Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Matthew Broderick, Candice Bergen, Dabney Coleman, Amy Madigan, Martin Sheen, Oliver Platt and Paul Sorvino either contributing little or being utterly wasted in single scenes.

Rules Don't Apply breaks all the rules of good film making, and as result fractures into forgettable cutting room floor material.

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Movie Review: Mirror Mirror (2012)

A fantasy drama comedy aimed at a family audience, Mirror Mirror enjoys a unique, over-the-top fairy tale aesthetic and an enchanting Julia Roberts performance.

Snow White (Lily Collins) is the beautiful daughter of the kindly King (Sean Bean), a popular and benevolent leader. Unfortunately he disappears while riding through the forest, and his devious wife Queen Clementianna (Julia Roberts), who is also the narrator, takes over as ruler of the land. A vain woman obsessed with her beauty, Clementianna confines Snow White to one room and a darkness descends onto the land.

Prince Andrew Alcott (Armie Hammer) of Valencia tangles with the seven dwarves while riding through the forest and is rescued by Snow White, who is on an unsanctioned trip outside the palace. Clementianna sets her eyes on the handsome prince as marriage material, and arranges for her assistant Brighton (Nathan Lane) to kill Snow White. But Brighton does not have the heart to do so, Snow White takes refuge with the dwarves, and starts to plot her return to power.

Directed by Tarsem Singh, Mirror Mirror is an irreverent take on the Brothers Grimm Snow White story. Tangentially side-swiping the legend from the perspective of the evil Queen, here the dwarves are dirtier and edgier, they fight on stilts and teach Snow White battle tactics, and a power-hungry and lustful love triangle features mother-in-law and daughter.

While the plot does tilt more towards adult themes than children's fare, Singh entertains younger eyes with outlandish sets and ridiculous costumes. Despite a limited number of locations and what appears to be a confined and theatrical milieu, Mirror Mirror pops with colour, oversized hats, and inventive set design. The basics of the story may be well known, but the presentation is highly imaginative.

As the eyes absorb all the fantastical aesthetics, Roberts entertains the ear with snarky narration. Her take on the Queen is unapologetically manipulative, a satirical extrapolation of a culture obsessed with looks, fame, power and little else. By design, this is mostly the Queen's story, but Snow White is provided with some feminist steel in the second half of the film, choosing a warrior's costume, standing up to her rights, and going toe to toe in forest fights as she battles to win back her land and claim her man. Lily Collins does well in the role, infusing it with quiet confidence.

Mirror Mirror is a reimagining of a popular fairy tale; all the elements are familiar, but the warped reflection is reasonably enjoyable in its weirdness.

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