The Ace Black Movie Blog

Showing posts with label Michael Stuhlbarg. Show all posts

Wednesday, 17 December 2025

Movie Review: After The Hunt (2025)

Genre: Drama

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Starring: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edibiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloe Sevigny

Running Time: 139 minutes

Synopsis: Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) is a well-respected philosophy professor at Yale University. Married to Frederick (Michael Stuhlbarg), she is in a friendly competition with fellow professor Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield) to secure a tenured position, and their relationship is at least flirtatious. Black post-graduate student Maggie (Ayo Edibiri) is the daughter of important donors, and harbours a crush on Alma. When Maggie reveals that Hank sexually assaulted her, careers are threatened, generational fissures are exposed, and long-held secrets re-emerge.

What Works Well: This drama dives into the deep end of the campus cesspool, where multiple culture clashes encompass the generational divide, racial tension, sexual misconduct, faculty rivalries, and plagiarism. The overlapping crises disrupt a pretention-packed intellectual salon, and Julia Roberts allows Alma to navigate an uncharted path with a mixture of courage, fumbles, and outspokenness.

What Does Not Work As Well: The intentionally dark and muddy visual aesthetic reflects moral murkiness, but is nevertheless suffocating. Within an already odious liberal arts academic milieu, misguided self-obsession combines with false entitlement to classify all the characters as insufferable. The music score is gimmicky, the running time 30 minutes too long, and even within the frame of no easy answers, plenty of loose plot ends are left hanging.

Key Quote:

Maggie: I don't feel comfortable having this conversation with you anymore.

Alma: Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable, Maggie.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Wednesday, 29 July 2020

Movie Review: A Serious Man (2009)

A dark comedy, A Serious Man explores the sequential unraveling of an ordinary life.

In a prologue set in ancient Europe, a Jewish couple wonder if they inadvertently invited a dybbuk (a malicious spirit) into their house.

Fast forward to 1967 in suburban Minnesota. Middle-aged Jewish mathematics Professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is waiting to hear if he will be granted tenure. In the meantime, his life starts to fall apart. His wife Judith suddenly announces she is in love with their family friend Sy and wants a divorce. Larry's good-for-nothing brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is outstaying his welcome and eternally occupies the bathroom, antagonizing Larry's daughter Sarah.

His son Danny is approaching his bar mitzvah, but is constantly stoned and whining about the television aerial. At the university, South Korean student Clive demands a better grade then leaves an envelope stuffed with cash on Larry's desk. Larry and Arthur move into a motel, but lawyers, car accidents, anonymous letter-writers, a succession of rabbis and a lustful next-door neighbour will all create more problems.

A low-key effort from Joel and Ethan Coen, A Serious Man taps into Jewish culture with a twist. In terms of narrative, the film is a series of dots tracing the inexplicable downward trajectory of Larry's life, as everything that can go wrong does go wrong with clockwork efficiency. Larry seems to be a decent fellow undeserving of such bad karma, but maybe those were his ancestors in the (otherwise unrelated) prologue, inviting bad spirits into the family's future.

While filled with dry humour and larger than life characters, A Serious Man is also less than the sum of its parts. The Coen's opt for a muted approach in making sense out of misfortune, and with Larry a pretty docile and passive character buffeted by the waves of life, the film gets suspended in one emotional space. An artificially truncated ending, proclaiming worse to come, does not help.

While the plot is reduced to searching for absurdities within the next crisis, the film is always a visual joy. The suburbs in the late 1960s are beautifully captured in the set designs, outfits and Roger Deakins' cinematography, with brown and orange colours dominating.

The understated emotional tone extends to the actors. Michael Stuhlbarg occupies the eye of the storm with even-tempered befuddlement, while the supporting cast is devoid of star names and consigned to caricaturish representations. No one moves past the starting gate in terms of character arcs, but when A Serious Man endures a mean streak of misfortune, avoiding disintegration is perhaps the best that can be expected.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Sunday, 17 June 2018

Movie Review: Steve Jobs (2015)

An honest portrayal of a deeply flawed genius, Steve Jobs presents the portrait of the man through a unique structure, revealing his passion, obsession, and distinctive character traits.

The film is divided into three chapters, each depicting the anxious period just before a key product launch in the remarkable career of Jobs (Michael Fassbender). The same group of people interact with him prior to each presentation:

Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), his marketing executive and chief confidant.
Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), the Apple co-founder, seeking recognition for Apple's early success and navigating a strained relationship with Jobs.
John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), the executive brought into Apple by Jobs, as well as Jobs' mentor and sometime nemesis.
Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), a long-term member of the Apple technical design team.
Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston), Jobs' former girlfriend and the mother of his daughter Lisa.
Lisa herself, from child to young adult.

The three product launches are the Apple Macintosh in 1984, which Jobs predicted would be a mass market success (wrong) and revolutionize the industry (eventually right); the first NeXT computer in 1988 after Jobs was ousted from Apple; and the Apple iMac in 1998, after he returned to the company and embarked on a remarkable run of success that transformed Apple into one of the largest and most successful business behemoths in history.

Directed by Danny Boyle, written by Aaron Sorkin and based on the Walter Isaacson book, Steve Jobs is an exhilarating talk fest. A series of rapid fire conversations in the build-up to high-stakes product launches, the film succeeds in highlighting the exhausting essence of a detail-obsessed man who both saw and defined the future of consumer electronics, and never yielded to what was convenient in pursuit of his vision.

The three-chapter structure traces Jobs' nuanced transformation as he ages and is buffeted by the realities of the business world. Although his core beliefs never change, he softens around the edges, listening just a bit more to the often exasperated Joanna, growing more accepting of Lisa's role in his life, and mending a few, if not all, damaged fences, notably with Sculley.

Sorkin's script is brilliant, the prose sharp but not overwhelming. The dialogue, while essentially made up, teases out all aspects of Jobs' insecurities and obstinacy, and the collision of his quirks with his objectives. Sorkin and Boyle never shy away from Jobs' stubborn obsessiveness with details that may not matter to anyone else, with Hertzfeld a regular victim, nor from Jobs' unwillingness to ever share the limelight or open a crack of recognition coveted by Wozniak.

The film also reveals Jobs' streak of ruthlessness in navigating the unforgiving waters of high stakes business, sometimes losing out in a big way (his ouster from Apple), and at other times charting a devious course back to glory (hyping an essentially empty NeXT cube to win an invite back to run Apple).

All the performances are perfect, with Fassbender getting into Jobs' skin and projecting a layer of arrogant confidence covering up a mass of complex unresolved issues. Winslet matches him word for word, comfortably finding Hoffman's courage in recognizing her role as the one person who can sometimes reach an often impossible man.

Steve Jobs is a worthy homage to a reluctant father, dismissive boss, traumatized orphan, friend to very few, unapologetic ideas poacher, and a legend possessing a laser focus on the concept of closed-system designs that would go on to dominate the world.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Saturday, 24 March 2018

Movie Review: Trumbo (2015)

A biographical drama, Trumbo is a sharply written story of career survival set during the post-World War Two Red Scare.

It's the late 1940s, and Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) is one of Hollywood's leading screenwriters. He is also a proud member of the Communist party, along with several other prominent film industry figures, including fellow writer Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.). Dalton is happily married to Cleo (Diane Lane) and his children include the precocious Nikola (Elle Fanning). With the Cold War taking hold, a wave of anti-communist sentiment sweeps from Washington DC to Hollywood, fanned by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren).

As a matter of principle Dalton and his fellow communists refuse to cooperate with the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Convicted for contempt of Congress, Dalton serves time in prison, and is placed on the notorious "Hollywood 10" blacklist, barred from working for any studio. Meanwhile, other communist sympathisers including Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg) do testify to save their careers. Once released Dalton has to find a way to make a living, and Frank King (John Goodman), head of low-budget King Brothers Productions, offers a lifeline of endless uncredited work.

Directed by Jay Roach and written by John McNamara, Trumbo is fascinating, witty and often quite funny. Both a character study and a cautionary tale about social paranoia, the film sparkles with the cantankerous yet phenomenally smart and articulate personality of Trumbo, and the remarkable post-war U-turn when communism was transformed in the public consciousness from great ally capable of defeating fascism to a feared existential menace.

The film does not shy away from presenting Trumbo as a man full of faults and contradictions. He enjoys his success, living on a large farm with all the luxuries afforded to the fortunate by capitalism. And when the strain of making a living through round-the-clock writing becomes nearly unbearable, Trumbo lashes out at his family members, hurting those he is trying to support.

And yet intellectually he never betrays his beliefs, and finds the unlikely path to expose the witch hunt by undermining it from within. Uneducated and fear-mongering campaigns devoid of evidence wilt when exposed to the light, and Trumbo's work ethic eventually forces the hypocrisy into the open

Trumbo boasts a remarkably talented cast in top form. Bryan Cranston delivers a career-defining performance, embracing the writer's flawed humanity and happily occupying the inconsistency of a proud communist enjoying all the riches that a life of celebrity has to offer. The character of Arlen Hird is an amalgam of other communist writers, and Louis C.K. portrays the more idealistic stream of left wing thinking, more willing to resist the system rather than work within it.

Helen Mirren makes the smug Hedda Hopper an obnoxious and hate-worthy gossip, a representation of self-appointed thought police, pouring gasoline on the flames of public fear and wielding disproportionate power. John Goodman as Frank King introduces bombastic levity, and his scenes add a whole new dimension to Trumbo, providing insight into the wondrous world of successful low-budget studios. Diane Lane, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Elle Fanning all make notable contributions.

Trumbo succeeds as a portrait of a remarkable man and even more so as a critical commentary on the lunacy of fear-driven social agendas.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Tuesday, 6 February 2018

Movie Review: Call Me By Your Name (2017)

A first-love romantic drama, Call Me By Your Name carries some emotion but is uneven, overlong and extremely slow.

It's the early 1980s, somewhere in northern Italy. Elio (Timothée Chalamet) is seventeen years old, preparing to while away the summer at the family villa. His academic father Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg), an archaeologist, hires graduate student Oliver (Armie Hammer) as his research assistant for six weeks.

A music lover, Elio is quiet and sensitive, and mildly resents giving up his bedroom for the confident, cocky and frequently dismissive Oliver. Both of them seek the company of girls, and Elio connects with Marzia (Esther Garrel). But gradually an undeniable attraction develops between Elio and Oliver, with the adolescent finally finding the encourage to instigate a relationship.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino with a screenplay by James Ivory, Call Me By Your Name takes two hours and twelve minutes to unfurl a simple and pretty basic love story between two men. This is a film all about the setting and the atmosphere, with endless near-static and lyrical images of fruit trees, scenic lakes, rural pathways and quaint villages. The film is often as enjoyable as flipping through postcards of the Italian landscape, and as cinematically exciting as watching paint dry.

When the actors are on the screen, Guadagnino still does not pick up the pace. It takes the best part of 90 minutes for the love between Elio and Oliver to finally emerge, and in that time the actors are occupied with many scenes of eating on the terrace, biking through the countryside, cavorting with local girls, playing the piano, reading weighty books and academic papers, and swimming. Call Me By Your Name is supposed to cover six weeks, but the film itself feels longer than that.

When the romance does finally blossom, it is noticeably unbalanced. It is clear why Elio would be enchanted by Oliver, and Timothée Chalamet's effective and expressive performance is by far the best thing about the film. But Oliver is much less believable, whether due to an underdrawn role that veers too far towards self-centred aloofness, or because Armie Hammer, at 31 years old, never comes to grips with the psyche of a graduate student falling for the seventeen year old son of his professor.

A late-in-the-day father-son talk resonates and finally injects the film with a much needed boost. But it arrives too little to make up for the preceding stultifying nothingness. Call Me By Your Name is a clumsily titled black hole, spinning slowly, killing energy and offering nothing in return.