Movie Review: Secretary (2002)

A kinky romance with traces of humour, Secretary plays a love variation on peculiar keys.

In a nondescript Florida suburb, Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is released from an institution after treatment for a self-harm incident. She still has strong urges to cut herself, but goes to secretarial school and achieves good scores. Much to the delight of her mother Joan (Lesley Ann Warren), Lee lands a job as a secretary for lawyer E. Edward Grey (James Spader), who works out of a house lavishly converted into a boutique office. Lee also maintains a tepid friendship with the willing Peter (Jeremy Davies).

Edward wants his correspondence prepared on typewriters rather than computers, and warns Lee the job will be boring. He also has awkward idiosyncratic tendencies and a halting verbal communication style. He discovers Lee's self-harm urges, and counters them by spanking her when she commits work errors. The slappings trigger Lee's sexual awakening and embrace of submissiveness, but what promises to be an enjoyable sadomasochistic romance stumbles on Edward's mounting embarrassment.

An adaptation and extrapolation of a Mary Gaitskill story written for the screen by Erin Cressida Wilson, Secretary is a romance on the edge. Director Steven Shainberg allows a unique vibe to permeate through the slowly developing attraction between the strange lawyer and recovering secretary, and they meet in the middle where he bends her over on his desk - presumably to get a close-up view of her typing mistakes - and she discovers joy in pain inflicted by others.

Both Lee and Edward are wired a bit differently, and the movie rejoices in two troubled adults finding a release outlet. The science is dubious around submission curing her propensity for self-harm, and Edward's psychological complexities are never even afforded a label. But Shainberg succeeds at the difficult task of cheering on two kooky protagonists as they push unlikely buttons to achieve a quirky brand of happiness.

The visuals are as offbeat as the characters. With the outdoors a suburban wasteland of nothingness, most of the drama unfurls within Edward's office, and production designer Amy Danger conjures up a stunning setting. Filled with organic browns and greens interrupted by imposing hallways and doors, the office exudes wild fertility, and provides a perfect environment for a budding romance and a shelter for sexual exploration. Angelo Badalamenti's soft but sensual score captures sly dynamics.

In a breakthrough role, Maggie Gyllenhaal dominates the core of the movie with a captivating performance, finding the intersection of insecurity and curiosity. James Spader creates an impenetrable counterpoint, his psychological complexities just as deep but less superficially obvious. 

Secretary finds love within troubled psyches, the someone-for-everyone expression of control and devotion landing with a smack.



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Movie Review: The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)

An obsession drama, The Kindergarten Teacher probes the fine line between good intentions and catastrophic meddling.

In Staten Island, New York, Lisa Spinelli (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a kindergarten teacher dissatisfied with her suburban life. The passion has seeped out of her marriage to Grant, and she believes her three teenaged kids are underachieving. Lisa attends night classes in poetry writing, but her contributions are critiqued by her teacher Simon (Gael García Bernal) as derivative and not personal enough.

In her kindergarten classroom, Lisa spots five and a half year old student Jimmy suddenly reciting an original poem. She writes it down, and learns from his nanny that Jimmy regularly composes poetry. Lisa is entranced, believing the child is a prodigy. She presents the poems as her own, impressing Simon and her classmates. Lisa starts obsessively occupying Jimmy's time, as her grip on reality spirals into an unpredictable orbit.

A remake of a 2014 Israeli film, The Kindergarten Teacher seeks the intersection of low self esteem, misplaced illusions of cultural grandeur, and a teacher's instinct to nurture talent. Writer and director Sara Colangelo crafts a quiet exploration of mental illness hiding behind a facade of normalcy and ready to feast on unfulfilled expectations. In what is essentially a one-person character study, Maggie Gyllenhaal occupies the central role with a fine performance, hiding disintegration behind the mundane tasks of getting on with living.

The film stores coiled energy by steering well clear of any traditional thriller or suspense elements, or even planned ill-intent. Lisa's enduring appeal fuels the drama, eliciting warm sympathy as a woman juggling career and family while aiming for self-improvement. Her enthralment and interest upon spotting Jimmy's talent is the desired reaction from a good kindergarten teacher.

Colangelo then dispassionately traces a distressing journey for teacher and student as Lisa surrenders to a burst of lustful betrayal before her behaviour progresses from supportive to annoying to lying, then stalking, and ultimately worse. Her logic of encouraging prodigious talent and protecting genius from the ravages of an uncaring world is internally sound; to everyone else, The Kindergarten Teacher is discreetly unhinged.



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Movie Review: White House Down (2013)

An action thriller about the attempted violent overthrow of the United States President, White House Down carves out territory on the knowing side of preposterous.

Army veteran and Capitol Police officer John Cale (Channing Tatum) is part of the security detail for Speaker of the House Eli Raphelson (Richard Jenkins). Cale's 11-year-old daughter Emily (Joey King) accompanies him to the White House, where Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal) of the Secret Service interviews Cale for a position on the President's security team. Father and daughter then join a White House tour.

United States President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) is seeking global support for a bold but controversial Middle East peace plan. But traitorous Senior Secret Service Agent Martin Walker (James Woods) has assembled a team of mercenaries to storm the White House and overthrow Sawyer's government. The mercenaries are led by Emil Stenz (Jason Clarke), and include psychotic white supremacist Killick (Kevin Rankin) and computer hacker Skip Tyler (Jimmi Simpson). 

The invaders take over the White House and seize hostages, demanding a $400 million ransom. Cale breaks loose and fights back, managing to extract Sawyer from Walker's clutches, while Emily captures and uploads video of the unfolding drama. Cale needs to keep Sawyer safe and rescue Emily as the full extent of Walker's plot becomes clear.

Silly, noisy, often stupid, overlong and saddled with graceless CGI, White House Down is also watchable because it never takes itself too seriously. While Olympus Has Fallen, also released in 2013 with a similar plot, is grittier and better, here director Roland Emmerich lets loose his (literal) flag-waving tendencies while destroying chunks of the White House (again), and whenever faced with a choice between subtle and ludicrous, chooses over-the-top. The entertainment level is of the brainless variety, but within that constraint, fun can found.

And so Cale and Sawyer engage in a ridiculous car chase, driving in circles around the fountain of the White House lawn. The bad guys alternate between one-shot, one-kill expediency and cross-eyed incompetence, depending on the script requirements. CGI-created machines crash at regular intervals in a horrible dissolution of unconvincing pixels, and any quip is a good quip, whether smart or sophomoric.

The extended preamble to introduce the characters and set the context is welcome. But the film is otherwise overlong at a wholly unnecessary 131 minutes, and despite the length, critical plot points are half-baked. It's deep into the crisis before Walker's real intentions are finally revealed in a jumbled rush, and until then the ransom demand is a limp excuse for the unfolding carnage.

The reliable cast is filled with talent and helps overcome some of the goofiness. Channing Tatum is up to the task of saving the day, and bites into the role of John Cale with grim determination to (in no particular order) keep the President safe, extricate his daughter from the clutches of maniacal seditionists, and earn himself a position with the Secret Service in the world's worst on-the-job interview. The White House may be down, but as long as a job can still be earned, it's not quite out.



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Movie Review: Crazy Heart (2009)

A drama and romance set in the country music world, Crazy Heart is a sincere story about second chances at love and life.

Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is a 57 year old washed up and broke alcoholic country music singer reduced to touring on his own in his beat-up truck and playing at bowling alleys. At a bar gig in Santa Fe he meets Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a single mom to four year old Buddy. She is an aspiring music reporter and interviews Bad before and after his show. A cautious romance develops between them.

The next stop is Phoenix, where Bad accepts the humiliation of opening for country music star Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), who was mentored by Bad early in his career. Despite some tension between the two men Tommy encourages Bad to get back to writing as a way to earn royalties. After a mishap on the road the relationship between Bad and Jean deepens, but his excessive drinking will cause a rift.

A film that drinks deeply from the sorrows and regrets of a derailed life, Crazy Heart is a human profile about still finding hope amidst the carnage. With a monumental Jeff Bridges performance, director and writer Scott Cooper, adapting the Thomas Cobb book, jumps into Blake's pick-up truck and crafts a tender story of broken dreams and an unlikely chance at new love.

At the film's outset Blake is reduced to the loneliness level of human existence. No backing band, a lost family, hardly any friends, and just a smattering of remaining fans, he is the living embodiment of a mostly forgotten has-been, spending his days in derelict motel rooms watching porn. Even drowning his miseries is a challenge, as he cannot afford to buy alcohol and is reduced to the charity of store owners to hand him a free bottle.

From this beginning Crazy Heart charts a course towards something resembling a revival. The intervention of others is crucial. Blake's manager insists he opens for Tommy, who in return demonstrates kindness to his mentor and hints at a potential path to recovery. In the meantime Blake forges an unexpected connection with Jean and her son Buddy, stirring within him a renewed yearning for a more complete life.

The film includes plenty of country music, with soundtrack contributions from T Bone Burnett, Stephen Bruton, and Ryan Bingham. Adding to the film's authenticity Bridges and Farrell perform their in-concert songs, and the music never gets in the way of the narrative. Robert Duvall has a small role as a bartender and longtime friend.

With an aesthetic dominated by the wide open skies of mostly rural America, Cooper and Bridges manage a remarkable feat: Bad Blake, despite all his faults, is a human being worth knowing and caring about. Beneath all the flabby grime is a sensitive songwriter and a man who can be rescued. All it takes is a  Crazy Heart to point the way.

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The Movies Of Maggie Gyllenhaal

All movies starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

A Dangerous Woman (1993)

Secretary (2002)

Adaptation (2002)

Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (2002)

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

World Trade Center (2006)

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Away We Go (2009)

Crazy Heart (2009)

White House Down (2013)

The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

A winds-of-change drama set at Wellesley College in 1953, Mona Lisa Smile tackles women's issues as attitudes transition from a post-War focus on domesticity to the initial rumbles of feminism.

Moving from California, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) joins the faculty of the prestigious all-women Wellesley College near Boston as an Art History teacher. In her early thirties, Katherine is already considered dangerously close to being past the age of marriage. Katherine becomes friends with her landlord Nancy (Marcia Gay Harden), who has grown too old too soon after losing her husband, and roommate Amanda (Juliet Stevenson), the independent minded College nurse. And while she finds her students phenomenally smart and well-educated, the entire focus of their lives is on finding a husband before finishing college.

The students include Joan (Julia Stiles), who has potential to study law at Yale should she choose to look past a future as a housewife; Betty (Kirsten Dunst), the most privileged of a privileged bunch and already planning her wedding; Giselle (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a free spirit seeking plenty of sexual adventure and harbouring a deep crush on Professor of Italian Studies Bill Dunbar (Dominic West); and the plain Connie (Ginnifer Goodwin), who is considered least likely to snag a husband.

Katherine tries to instill in her students a greater sense of ambition, urging them to look into futures that could offer something different than husbands, kids and housework. She faces a significant backlash from both the students, who have been raised with predefined expectations, and the College administrators, who do not take kindly to Katherine challenging time-honoured traditions. Katherine also has to sort out her personal life, with Bill taking an interest in her, and her California boyfriend Paul (John Slattery) seeking a commitment.

Directed by Mike Newell, Mona Lisa Smile delves into the status of women as they see themselves. With plenty of intelligent characters at interesting crossroads in life, the film never lacks for variety, opposing viewpoints and conflict.  The script (by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal) manages to create an academic environment where minds are free to explore big questions about the future, the value of education, and the ambitions of women relative to society's expectations. There is no shortage of perspectives, and the film does a fine job of challenging both old and new attitudes.

Katherine Watson is a catalyst for change, holding on to her principles and not afraid to shake the established structure. Some branches will fall on her head and she will learn as much as she will teach. Mona Lisa Smile gets the pacing of history right, and Katherine discovers that grand societal changes do not come easily or quickly and for every two steps forward there is at least one step back.

The film also has a couple of neat tricks up its sleeve, with a couple of curves in the road ahead for the students over the course of their one year interaction with Katherine. Betty and Joan in particular will find their trajectories disrupted by Katherine, and not in the way that they could have expected. With her mother represent the prevailing feminine power elite, Betty will have the most heated clashes with Katherine, encounters that will change them both. Joan holds the most promise as being open and able to disrupt the status quo, but Katherine will learn the most about the pace of change from Joan's journey.

The film engages because Katherine and her students are women worth knowing in any era, and it is refreshing for a film to feature a cast of uniformly smart women, elevating their discourse and sparring to a refreshingly educated level. They still poke and needle each other and push each other's buttons, but within a context of striving to achieve either the aspirations of the past or the promise of the future.

Filmed on the Wellesley College campus, Mona Lisa Smile tries hard to recapture the 1950s at a New England campus for the elite. But there is a lingering sense of slightly modernized setting and attitudes. Julia Roberts contributes to this by not trying too hard to change a pre-established persona that is strongly linked with a more recent era. Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ginnifer Goodwin represent some of the best young acting talent assembled into one film, but they also go only so far in being convincing as 1950s daughters of what would become the Greatest Generation.

The tension between a woman's outward smile and her internal dissatisfaction gives the film it's name. Mona Lisa Smile does not necessarily provide all the answers, but does perceptively ask some of the questions at the heart of modern social evolution.

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Movie Review: World Trade Center (2006)

A survival story set beneath the collapsed towers and based on real events, World Trade Center salutes the human spirit but struggles in its second half to build a cinematic experience out of a mostly static personal tragedy.

On the morning of September 11, 2001 in New York City, Port Authority Police officers John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Peña) are among a large group of emergency responders dispatched to the World Trade Center after planes piloted by terrorists strike the twin towers. In the plaza level, McLoughlin is preparing his men to help in the rescue efforts when the South Tower collapses. In an instant McLoughlin orders his men to take refuge near the elevator shaft. He survives along with Jimeno, although both are trapped by the rubble and rendered immobile.

Officer Dominick Pezzulo (Jay Hernandez) also survives and is able to extricate himself, but is unable to free Jimeno and is then killed when the North Tower collapses. Both badly hurt, McLoughlin and Jimeno have to keep themselves alive by raising each others' spirits, while their wives Donna McLoughlin (Maria Bello) and Allison Jimeno (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and families are consumed by worry and the lack of information.

World Trade Center is a respectful film, director Oliver Stone steering well clear of his tendencies for controversies and conspiracies, and creating an ultimately simple story of courage and rescue. The film also avoids, to a large degree, any spectacular images of airplanes striking buildings, limiting the terrorism acts to small television screens as witnessed by most of the world at the time. The performances match the tone, Cage and Peña creating distinct personalities and teasing out the men's human side as they reveal more personal details of their lives to each other as their ordeal drags on. Bello and Gyllenhaal do all that is asked of them, police wives struck with the panic of the worst possible fears coming true.

The limitations of the film's experience are set by the inherent nature of the story. Once the buildings fall, there is little forward momentum, and World Trade Center is essentially caught in the same rubble as the two officers. There is only so much drama that can be generated from men fighting to stay awake and alive while their families anxiously await any news. Stone has to drag out this phase for close to an hour, and the film suffers from it. In contrast, once the rescue starts, it feels rushed and muddled, Stone and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey unable to coherently reconstruct the arduous work of freeing and pulling out the two men from the tightest of confines.

What the film does do well is present the unfathomably disastrous attacks from the perspective of two men doing their job, getting caught up in the chaos, uncertainty and confusion of events that no one was prepared for, and finding themselves trapped under the rubble of two collapsed buildings and in excruciating pain. A claustrophobic sense of desperation becomes the enemy, the men's only link to the outside world a shaft of light above Jimeno.

They keep each other alive through sheer companionship, clinging to precious life when all around them spells death. Silently, the film forces the question about how many others faced the same fate and were not saved. The impromptu actions of Marines Dave Karnes and Jason Thomas led to the fortuitous rescue of McLoughlin and Jimeno; many others, equally trapped, likely waited in vain before perishing. The impact of the film comes from the realization that for 2,977 families other than the relatives of McLoughlin and Jimeno, the days after September 11 ended very differently, the frantic search for answers met with nothing but silence and ultimately, the most grim of confirmations.

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Movie Review: Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

A dramedy with serious themes of mental stagnation and death weaved into a comic structure, Stranger Than Fiction tackles writers block, mid-life angst and the value of life within a refreshing package.

In New York City, Internal Revenue Service auditor Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is lonely, bored and boring. He lives his life metronomically and according to strict routine. Without warning Harold starts to hear a woman's voice in his head narrating his life. Although Harold does not know this, the voice belongs to celebrated author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), and Harold is the main character in her latest attempt to write a book. Once the darling of the literary world, Karen is now suffering a serious case of writer's block and has not published for 10 years. She is struggling to find a way to kill Harold, as she does with all her main characters at the end of each book.

Harold is tasked with auditing the bakery business of Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and finds himself helplessly falling in love with Ana. But he is driven to distraction by Karen's constant stream of narration, and gets no relief from a couple of doctors (Tom Hulce and Linda Hunt). He finally turns to literature professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) for help. Together Harold and Jules start to piece together the mystery of Harold's predicament. They have to figure out if he is a character in an unfolding comedy or tragedy, and how to influence the ending.

Directed by Marc Forster, Stranger Than Fiction is smart, funny and creative, as the Lindsay Doran script deploys an innovative premise to get into the head of two intriguing characters grappling with endings and beginnings. Harold, for all practical purposes, is already dead. His life is passive and he has no meaningful connections with other people. Lacking ambition and not feeling passionate about anything, Harold is marching to an inevitable and inconspicuous ending; when and how he actually dies will be generally immaterial.

Once Harold becomes keenly aware of his own impending end, thanks to Karen's interventive narration, he is pushed out of his middle-age malaise and starts to live, and suddenly dying is a big and scary deal. Harold pursues a relationship with Ana and is forced into a friendship with a co-worker. He starts to pursue a long dormant guitar passion, changes his clothes, and stumbles onto a life mentor in Jules. Now with multiple purposes driving his existence, Harold is eager to prevent his premature death.

Karen is also going through a painful mid-life crisis and is professionally dying a slow death. Now fading from memory as a once-famous author, Karen needs to unblock her creativity, and finding a meaningful way to kill Harold will spark her revival. His death will breathe life into her career, but Karen is also struggling with the perversity of her success riding on the shoulders of the demise of all her main characters. The death that used to come easily on the written page is now a struggle, forcing Karen to ponder whether the value of life comes only at the price of death.

Will Ferrell puts his frat boy humour to one side and delivers an affecting performance as Harold. Containing himself and delivering soft humour through pathos, Ferrell demonstrates appreciated depth. Emma Thompson plays Karen as anguished and borderline depressed, while Maggie Gyllenhaal presents Ana as the anti-Harold, full of life, impulsiveness and not afraid to break the rules in small demonstrations of personal anarchy.

A bright treatment of death's place in emphasizing life, Stranger Than Fiction is an adroit confirmation of enduring human realities.

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Movie Review: Away We Go (2009)

A movie with its heart in the right place, Away We Go is operating with material so thin it ultimately floats away in the sweet breeze, barely noticeable among all the other happy bugs and crisp leaves.

Verona (Maya Rudolph) and Burt (John Krasinski) are a couple in their early thirties, still relatively unsettled and not established in any city or clear careers. They discover that Maya is pregnant, and six months into the pregnancy, Burt's quirky parents, the only family nearby, announce that they are leaving town to resettle in Belgium. With nothing tying Verona and Burt down, they decide to visit various friends and family members across the US, in the hope of finding a place to call home.

They visit Verona's flaky old boss (Allison Janney) in Phoenix; Verona's unmarried sister (Carmen Ejogo) in Tucson; Burt's highly irritating college friend (Maggie Gyllenhaal), now a married and condescendingly perfect mother, in Madison; other college friends (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey) with many adopted kids in Montreal; and Burt's married but just-dumped brother (Paul Schneider) in Miami. None of these locales or people resonate with Verona and Burt, but the visits bring them closer to each other and eventually Verona reveals a sad piece of family history, through which they discover where they belong.

A road trip movie with not much of a road and an undefined destination, the only thing Away We Go has going for it is a relatively convincing strong central relationship between Burt and a very pregnant Verona, with Maya Randolph and John Krasinski appearing pleasingly effortless in portraying a deep and sturdy love.

Otherwise, the script by David Eggers and Vandela Vida provides little for director Sam Mendes to work with. The humour is either fake or forced, the secondary characters are conventional visitors from other movies, and the attempts at pathos with the whole seemingly hastily appended story of Verona's parents smacks of desperation.

Away We Go departs quickly, its light weight leaving barely any impression.

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