Movie Review: Killer Heat (2024)

Genre: Neo-Noir Mystery  

Director: Philippe Lacôte  

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Richard Madden  

Running Time: 97 minutes  

Synopsis: On the Greek island of Crete, private detective Nick Bali (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is hired by Penelope Vardakis (Shailene Woodley) to probe the death of her brother-in-law Leo (Richard Madden), who supposedly fell to his death while rock climbing. The wealthy Vardakis family controls the island, and Penelope is married to Leo's twin brother Elias (also Madden), the CEO of the family's business empire. Nick's sleuthing uncovers a web of jealousy linked to a long-ago relationship between Penelope and Leo, and teams up with local police detective Mensah to uncover the truth.

What Works Well: The Crete filming locations are attractive, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings the requisite ruffled curiosity to the role of a private investigator running from his own jealousy demons. The narration is marginally overdone, but mostly effective.

What Does Not Work As Well: The commitment to noir fundamentals is admirable, but locating this mystery under bright Mediterranean skies defeats any attempt at a dark aesthetic. The plot machinations are undone by a focus on too few characters (Nick, Penelope, and Elias) limiting the potential pool of conspirators. Shailene Woodley struggles to convey a femme fatale's complexity, and once revealed, the evil intentions and follow-up actions hardly make any sense.

Key Quote:

Nick (narrating): Sometimes you use a carrot. Sometimes you use a stick. Sometimes you just lie your ass off.



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Movie Review: Ferrari (2023)

Genre: Biographical Drama  

Director: Michael Mann  

Starring: Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Patrick Dempsey, Sarah Gadon  

Running Time: 130 minutes  

Synopsis: It's 1957, and Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) is struggling to maintain control of the company he founded with his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) after the Second World War. Still grieving the recent death of his son, Enzo is facing financial difficulties and an on-track challenge from Maserati, all while juggling Laura with his long-term secret lover Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley). He hires driver Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone) in preparation for the Mille Miglia, a grueling endurance race that may represent Ferrari's last chance to attract investment.

What Works Well: This biography focuses on one year in the life of a legendary sports car tycoon, and Troy Kennedy Martin's script succeeds in revealing some depth to Enzo's character. An otherwise stoic Adam Driver mines the foundation of Ferrari's emotionless reaction to death (he lost two friends on the same weekend in his racing days), and in perhaps the best scene, expounds on his ruthless competitive philosophy. The final quarter is dominated by racing action, and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt excels in conveying the raw speed of a dangerous event through scenic Italian locations.

What Does Not Work As Well:  A large back-end investment in the Mille Miglia is not supported by sufficient introductions, unbalancing narrative foundations. Director Michael Mann collects several previously incidental racing drivers and unleashes them in identical looking machines. Suddenly thrust into the centre of attention, the drivers remain indistinguishable in their driver's seats, while the race format is never explained. Elsewhere, various plot threads are left dangling, neither Ferrari's search for investment nor his complex relationships with Laura and Lina arriving at satisfactory resolutions, despite the lengthy running time.

Conclusion: Demonstrates good speed, but sputters on the way to the finish line.



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Movie Review: Dumb Money (2023)

Genre: Comedy Drama  

Director: Craig Gillespie  

Starring: Paul Dano, Shailene Woodley, Seth Rogen, Vincent D'Onofrio  

Running Time: 104 minutes  

Synopsis: During the Covid pandemic, YouTuber Keith Gill (Paul Dano), better known as Roaring Kitty, spots what he believes is the undervalued stock of the company GameSpot, which is heavily shorted by Wall Street experts including hedge fund manager Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen). Keith invests more than $50,000 and shares the tip with his followers, who start to buy the stock. Communicating on Reddit forums and trading commission-free on the Robinhood app, retail investors drive up the stock price in a buying frenzy. Keith is suddenly very wealthy, and everyone awaits his next move.

What Works Well: This true David versus Goliath story highlights seismic shifts in stock market dynamics, as social media and the breaking down of barriers-to-entry allow small investors to challenge traditional wisdom. The story carries it's own power, deploying doses of humour, never lingering in one place for too long, and using multiple perspectives to convey chaotic ripple effects during surreal lockdown times. Shailene Woodley as Keith's wife adds pragmatism from the sidelines. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Both the soundtrack and the dialogue opt for vulgarity over wit, dramatically cheapening the storytelling. By chasing after many small stories (a couple of college students, a nurse, a GameSpot store employee, Keith's brother and parents, the Robinhood entrepreneurs, and several Wall Street types are all wedged in), none of the characters are afforded much depth and the overarching narrative is lost in the cacophony. The celebratory premise is ambushed in the financial canyon of an artificially inflated stock price, where retail investors experience a pyrrhic victory in the mad dash to the exit.

Conclusion: Plenty of zest undermined by inelegant execution.



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Movie Review: Endings, Beginnings (2019)

Genre: Romantic Drama  

Director: Drake Doremus  

Starring: Shailene Woodley, Jamie Dornan, Sebastian Stan  

Running Time: 110 minutes  

Synopsis: 30-something Daphne (Shailene Woodley) breaks up with her long-term boyfriend Adrian, abandons her job, and moves in with her sister Billie (Lindsay Sloane). Daphne quits drinking and commits to being single for a while, but at a New Year's Eve party she meets free-spirited Frank (Sebastian Stan) and the more serious Jack (Jamie Dornan). She is soon romantically involved with both of them, despite learning they are close friends.

What Works Well: Shailene Woodley tries hard to make something out of the perpetually smoking and none-too-bright Daphne, while Wendie Malick as her effectively off-putting mother Sue deserved more screen time.

What Does Not Work As Well: Director and co-writer Drake Doremus enjoys filming his sideways-drifting characters from the back with unnecessarily jerky camerawork, and much of the improvised dialogue is unsynched from the visuals. All the attention-seeking flashiness fails to mask the embarrassment of three purpose-free hormone bags engaged in emotionally asinine behaviour, and the drama quickly becomes exceptionally tedious. Daphne's search for companionship is not helped by Frank and Jack being virtually interchangeable, other than when engaging in sex.

Conclusion: How to fail at life by really trying.



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Movie Review: To Catch A Killer (2023)

Also Known As: Misanthrope

Genre: Crime Thriller

Director: Damián Szifron

Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn 

Running Time: 119 minutes

Synopsis: In Baltimore, a sniper kills 29 people on New Year's Eve and disappears. Experienced FBI Agent Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn) leads the hunt for the killer, and recruits beat cop Eleanor (Shailene Woodley) onto his team. She has a sharp mind but also a dark past of rejection and self-harm. The investigation suffers from interference resulting in distractions and more casualties, including a mall shooting. Lammark and Eleanor build mutual respect as they come under extreme pressure to end the carnage.

What Works Well: A moody and dark character-driven drama benefits from imperfect protagonists wilting under the demand for immediate answers. Lammark (the experienced and initially confident agent) and Eleanor (plucked from obscurity but battling hidden demons) create an effective duo at the heart of a complex investigation. Director/co-writer Damián Szifron surrounds them with an unforgiving environment of meddling politicians, abrasive talk-show hosts, and a formidable killer, and throws in courageous narrative curves.

What Does Not Work As Well: False leads and action scenes generated by secondary atrocities overwhelm the investigative elements, leaving a void where good detective work ought to reside. The eventual clues used to track down the antagonist are comparatively vague, and the killer is unmasked too late to register as a worthwhile adversary. The effectiveness of the final showdown is compromised by contrivances. 

Conclusion: Satisfyingly intricate, but insufficiently focused.



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Movie Review: The Fallout (2021)

A drama about the aftereffects of tragedy, The Fallout is a clear-eyed yet tender look at two young lives forced to the limits of emotional resiliency.

High school students Vada (Jenna Ortega) and Mia (Maddie Ziegler) have little in common, but take refuge in the same bathroom stall during a school shooting. They are traumatized, but both survive. Vada's friend Quinton (Niles Fitch) loses his brother in the shooting.

In the aftermath, a friendship develops between the scrappy and grounded Vada and the more aristocratic dancer Mia. Vada now feels detached from her parents (John Ortiz and Julie Bowen), and her previously close relationship with younger sister Amelia is strained. She also withdraws from her best friend Nick (Will Ropp), who immerses himself in gun control activism. Mia and Vada experiment with drinks, weed, and intimacy, while Vada starts seeing therapist Anna (Shailene Woodley).

Less interested in a linear plot and more concerned with the everyday process of picking up the pieces, The Fallout is about what happens when the news cameras move on to the next story. Writer and director Megan Park crafts a quiet drama punctuated by moments of distress, as Vada and Mia navigate an uncharted wilderness filled with funerals, trauma, guilt, nightmares, emptiness, and the eternal loss of any sense of security.

The film embraces honest and raw emotions and refuses easy resolutions, as every character deals with the tragedy in their own way, none of them perfect, all bumping against unmarked bruises. Vada's pathway out of horror is filled with dead-ends, missteps, ups, downs, and jagged edges. Friendships are forged then tested, promising relationships flounder, and the most precious bonds start to disintegrate. Parents are more helpless and annoying than helpful, and Vada has to accelerate the growing up process and define new boundaries on the fly. 

Park draws out two eloquent performances from the young leads. Jenna Ortega allows Vada to cling to the illusion of being ok while she is clearly not. Maddie Ziegler as Mia is more soulful, seemingly popular but surprisingly already lonely before the shooting, and now relieved to find a new friend to help navigate the coping process. The scenes between them marinate in the comfortably awkward warmth of distressed youth forging precious but fragile connections.

The actresses safeguard the core, as in the absence of traditional narrative arcs the film sometimes drifts into repetitive notes. A faint light at the end of a disorienting tunnel does eventually start to flicker, although the monsters unleashed in a damaged mind are also on guard to block recovery paths.



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Movie Review: The Mauritanian (2021)

A legal drama based on true events., The Mauritanian explores the plight of detainees rounded up during the war on terror, and held at Guantanamo Bay with no access to due process.

Two months after the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001, Mohamedou Slahi (Tahar Rahim) is arrested at the behest of the United States while attending a family wedding in his home country of Mauritania. In his past he had trained with Al-Qaeda and had recently received a phone call from his cousin using Bin Laden's satellite phone. 

Slahi is held without charge at the American Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. By 2005, Albuquerque-based lawyer Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) accepts his case and starts proceedings to force the government to reveal evidence against him. Around the same time, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch) is appointed to prosecute Slahi on charges that he was one of the main organizers and recruiters of the terrorist attacks, with the US administration seeking the death penalty. 

Hollander and her assistant Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley) visit Slahi and encourage him to write his history so they can mount a defence. Meanwhile, Couch's attempts to assemble meaningful evidence is challenged by layers of governmental secrecy. Both Hollander and Couch will be startled by what their investigations will uncover.

Based on Slahi's book Guantanamo Diary and directed by Kevin Macdonald, The Mauritanian is an exquisitely constructed drama exposing a descent to ethical bankruptcy. Through the story of one man, the screenplay by M.B. Traven, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani indicts an inept administration that started with clumsy extrajudicial detention then veered to the torture tactics of tinpot regimes.

A multi-pronged approach towards shocking revelations adds narrative zest. Slahi's story unfolds through letters to Hollander from his prison cell, while Couch is independently readying his case under pressure to secure a conviction. The death penalty requires a high bar, and Couch is dogged in pursuing the necessary evidence, just as Hollander ardently believes in basic principles of justice. With flashbacks filling in Slahi's ordeal, the quests of the two lawyers merge with artistic elegance.

The film is designed to illicit fury, and succeeds through measured pacing and a commitment to rich storytelling. Macdonald strides towards the abyss of interrogatory behaviour, and by the time the torture tactics take centre stage for a harrowing ten minute sequence, the impact is amplified through character depth. 

At 129 minutes, the running time is on the longer side. A side-bar about another Guantanamo inmate originally from Marseilles could have used a trim, while all opposing viewpoints, including the pressures experienced by those authorizing torture, are absent.

Tahar Rahim finds the ambiguity within a man harbouring a chequered history, still finding balance despite the abrupt cancellation of his freedom. Jodie Foster rolls back the years to deliver a steely performance as a lawyer fiercely protective of her profession's fundamentals. 

Righteousness matters most during the severest crises. In the brutal conflict between terrorists and their pursuers, The Mauritanian humanizes the cost of inhumanity.



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Movie Review: The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021)

A romantic drama, The Last Letter From Your Lover interweaves timelines in an unabashedly old-fashioned celebration of love.

Two related stories are set in London and take place decades apart. In 1965, Jennifer Stirling (Shailene Woodley) is stuck in a loveless marriage with frequently absent and dismissive businessman Laurence (Joe Alwyn). After a car crash Jennifer suffers from memory loss, but she uncovers letters that help her remember the past and flashbacks reveal her love affair with financial journalist Anthony O'Hare (Callum Turner). They met on the French Riviera and fell deeply in love, and over several months exchanged passionate letters as they considered starting a new life together.

In modern day London, journalist Ellie Haworth (Felicity Jones) is still recovering from a difficult ending to a long relationship. While researching a story in the archives of the London Chronicle, she stumbles upon one of the letters between Jennifer and Anthony. Ellie teams up with archivist Rory McCallan (Nabhaan Rizwan) to dig up more of the letters and uncover the full extent of the long-ago love story. Meanwhile, Ellie and Rory also start to grow close, although she may not be ready for another relationship.

An adaptation of the Jojo Moyes book with a screenplay by Nick Payne and Esta Spalding, The Last Letter From Your Lover is irresistibly committed to tried-and-true romantic concepts. As both sets of lovers navigate familiar ups-and-downs, Augustine Frizzell directs with a welcome breeziness, brisk pacing and irony-free attitudes, helped by an attractive cast and grounded performances.

Packaged into a two-romances-in-one-film structure, the 1960s drama is stronger and features an unhappy wife finding the perfect man and having to grapple with the trade-off involved in abandoning her privileged life. The modern story is fuelled by the letters of the past, and offers an initially mismatched couple in Ellie and Rory, starting on opposite sides of a bureaucratic process before bumping against her lack of readiness for a new relationship.

None of the elements are new, but Frizzell tackles both stories with confidence and has two time eras to play with. In particular, the mid-1960s settings in London and the French Riviera provide rich opportunities for glamorous costumes and locations, recalling the jet-set lifestyle afforded to elites like the Stirlings. Ellie's modern context is less visually alluring, but her story is part romance, part journalistic snooping, both enlivened by sprinkles of humour.

Memory loss, men's demeaning behaviour towards women, a classic race against the clock, and an untimely car crash all pour into a final act that merges the two stories. The Last Letter From Your Lover is written in recognizable but quite elegant script.



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Movie Review: White Bird In A Blizzard (2014)

A mystery and psychological drama, White Bird In A Blizzard combines dysfunctional family issues with burgeoning lust cutting across generations.

In a small suburban town, the world of 17 year old Kat Connors (Shailene Woodley) is upended when her mother Eve (Eva Green) suddenly disappears. Kat's father Brock (Christopher Meloni) is equally stunned, while her stoner boyfriend Phil (Shiloh Fernandez) makes matters worse by immediately losing interest in intimacy.

In flashbacks Kat recalls the loveless marriage between her parents, with Eve an emotionally suffocated stay-at-home mother sensing her life slipping away. She grows increasingly resentful as Kat blossoms into the woman she once was, and Eve starts to exhibit an uncomfortable sexual interest in Phil. Back in the present, Kat is dealing with her anguish by meeting with therapist Dr. Thaler (Angela Bassett) and planning a seduction of hunky Detective Scieziesciez (Thomas Jane), who is investigating the disappearance case.

An independent production written, directed and co-produced by Gregg Araki, White Bird In A Blizzard boasts Shailene Woodley in fine form, but otherwise suffers from graceless execution. While the slow revelation of Eve's mystery and the accompanying interpersonal complexities swirling around Kat hold some interest, the emotions are often too close to the surface, and many scenes land with amateurish awkwardness. Phil's "I'm looking for the cat" poolside routine with Eve purring at him borders on a porn parody.

Which is unfortunate, because the film touches on several worthwhile themes. Eve (the name representing womanhood) is struggling with an unappreciated life spent serving her husband, the vitality of youth now a long lost memory. And Araki presents a relatively original take on the mother-daughter bond, here Eve descending into outright jealousy and embarking on a Mrs. Robinson quest to entrap Kat's boyfriend Phil. Meanwhile Kat is mimicking her mother's tendencies to seek sexual thrills across generations with Scieziesciez.

But most of the narrative arcs are eventually abandoned, and many other threads fall flat. The therapist sessions are an utter waste of Angela Bassett, Kat's high school friends suffer from wedged-in diversity, and the entire rushed third act, set two years after Eve's disappearance, emits a first draft stink. A late twist is inconsistent with everything preceding it but is nevertheless presented with dumbfounding dispassion.

White Bird In A Blizzard occasionally flutters but mostly disappears against the horizon.

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The Movies Of Shailene Woodley

All movies starring Shailene Woodley and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Descendants (2011)

The Spectacular Now (2013)

White Bird In A Blizzard (2014)

The Fault In Our Stars (2014)

Snowden (2016)

Adrift (2018)

Endings, Beginnings (2019)

The Mauritanian (2021)

The Fallout (2021)

The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021)

To Catch A Killer (2023)

Ferrari (2023)

Dumb Money (2023)

Killer Heat (2024)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Adrift (2018)

A survival-at-sea adventure drama, Adrift carries an emotional punch and benefits from a terrific Shailene Woodley central performance.

The story starts with 23 year old American Tami (Woodley) waking up alone on a stricken and badly damaged yacht, adrift in the wide open ocean. As she struggles to gain control of the yacht and survive, her story is revealed in flashback. It's 1983, and Tami, originally from San Diego, lands in Tahiti as she aimlessly travels the world in search of a purpose.

Soon she meets British solo sailor and adventurer Richard Sharp (Sam Claflin). They embark on a whirlwind romance, fall deeply in love, and within months are thinking about marriage. Richard bumps into old acquaintances who ask him to sail their luxury yacht Hazana back to San Diego. Soon Richard and Tami are on their way, but a massive hurricane is in their way.

Based on true events as depicted in Tami Oldham's book Red Sky in Mourning, Adrift is part tender romance and part harrowing survival ordeal, the two streams elegantly juxtaposed by director Baltasar Kormákur. The film jumps back and forth between the flashback unfurling the blossoming romance and the present crisis at sea, and the two parts of Tami's story support each other, her perseverance in trying to will herself to survive magnified by having finally found unexpected love literally at the end of the world.

After the hurricane Tami's challenge is to tend to her injuries get the boat back to a semi-functional state, try to find and rescue a badly incapacitated Richard, and then develop a plan that could lead to a rescue. She has sailing experience but is no way an expert at navigating the Pacific ocean on her own. While survival movies are common, Kormákur finds enough challenges and opportunities at sea to keep Tami occupied and the narrative humming.

The film's greatest asset is Shailene Woodley, and during both the falling-in-love scenes and the terrifying battle against the elements in a crippled yacht, she commands events with a stirring performance full of spirit and determination mixed with self-doubt.

Adrift reaches an effective emotional crescendo with a gentle yet potent curve towards the end of Tami's journey. The film leaves its mark as a testament to the human spirit's ability to find reservoirs of strength, wherever they reside, to endure and survive desperate calamities.

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Movie Review: The Spectacular Now (2013)

A teen high school drama and romance, The Spectacular Now treats its characters with respect but stumbles on some uneven tones.

Sutter (Miles Teller) is in his last year of high school, half-heartedly applying to colleges. Sutter is popular, but lives for the moment, barely studies, and has no plans for the future. He has a strained relationship with his mother Sara (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and does not know much about his father except that he left the house years earlier. Sutter is also a heavy drinker, keeping a flask handy and gulping alcohol at every opportunity.

His long-term girlfriend Cassidy (Brie Larson) finally dumps him when she catches him in the company of another girl, but Cassidy is really tired of Sutter's overall aimlessness. She starts a relationship with star athlete Marcus (Dayo Okeniyi), but Sutter does not give up hope of winning her back. Meanwhile he meets the down-to-earth Aimee (Shailene Woodley), a hard working low profile student with her own dominating mother. Sutter takes Aimee on as a project to introduce her to the fun life, and gradually they prod each other towards change.

Directed by James Ponsoldt and co-written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, The Spectacular Now takes a relatively serious look at a teenager as he stands at the crossroads. The film sets out to draw a stark line of contrast between the carefree, live-for-today attitude and the more cerebral, worry-about-the-future stance most young people tend to find natural. Sutter very much belongs in the former camp, to the exasperation of his friends and teachers, but he sees little point in anything except enjoying the current moment.

How Sutter, a seemingly intelligent, caring and capable young man, came to be so indifferent to his own future is revealed slowly, Ponsoldt content to let the story unfold at a relaxed pace. The majority of the film is mostly occupied with Sutter being Sutter, working hard at doing nothing, tentatively exploring the strange and new attraction he senses towards Aimee while at the same time finding it difficult to let go of Cassidy.

The deliberate exposition is both a strength and weakness. While Sutter emerges as a well-rounded and deeply flawed character, the film is repetitive and entrenches his self-destructive behavioral patterns, including uncontrolled drinking, driving while impaired and an inability to motivate himself to study. When the moment of truth comes and Sutter has to evolve or wither, he has precious little time and space to convincingly maneuver.

With the entire film riffing on themes from Say Anything..., Miles Teller channels a more adrift version of John Cusack's Lloyd Dobler. Shailene Woodley is impeccable as the star-struck new possible girlfriend, her quick entry into Sutter's hard drinking orbit one of the film's more disturbing themes. But The Spectacular Now reaches a gut-wrenching cinematic peak and emotional trough when Sutter finally and simultaneously catches up with his past and his future. Suddenly, aiming for the thrill of now does not appear all that spectacular.

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Movie Review: Snowden (2016)

A biographical thriller dramatizing recent events, Snowden recreates the story of one of America's most famous whistleblowers. The film is never less than competent, but also struggles to add much that is revelatory.

It's 2013, and former CIA employee Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is holed up in a Hong Kong hotel room with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo). Snowden is in possession of a microchip with thousands of files he stole from the National Security Agency (NSA) revealing the depth of illegal surveillance being perpetrated on the unsuspecting American public under the guise of counter terrorism. In flashback, Snowden's story is revealed. Stymied from joining the special forces due to injury, computer wizard Snowden joins the CIA where his mentor Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans) exposes him to the world of intelligence. He also meets Hank Forrester (Nicolas Cage), a technology wizard from an earlier era now marginalized after a whistleblowing incident.

Snowden starts a relationship with photographer, dancer and model Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley), and her more liberal views gradually rub off on him. Assigned to Geneva, Snowden grows disillusioned with the intelligence world after experiencing first hand how global surveillance serves the world of dirty tricks. He continues to work in intelligence as a contractor, to the detriment of his health and relationship. Back at the hotel room, reporters from The Guardian newspaper arrive, including Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) and Ewen MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson). Snowden wants the newspaper to break the story, but the international manhunt has already started.

Directed by and co-written by Oliver Stone, Snowden is a relatively straightforward story told too soon. As of the film's 2016 release date, Edward Snowden is still a guest of convenience with the Russians and the true impact of his spectacular data theft is perhaps yet to be fully understood. The story of his remarkable hack and subsequent escape played out in real time on television screens and websites across the world in 2013. The wisdom of dramatizing fresh events from three years prior while the implications are still reverberating is fundamentally questionable.

Nevertheless, the story is undeniably provocative and Stone, operating well within his passion and expertise in dramas with broad political dimensions, delivers a decent package. The relationship between Snowden and Mills is the one new area that the film explores well, and the film hits its bright spots conveying Snowden trying to hold the relationship together while wrestling with increasing paranoiac discomfort. His bottled up awareness of the government machine spying on everyone takes an increasingly worrisome toll on his health, as he observes the carefree Mills, like most millennials, sharing her life on the computer, including government-questioning liberal views and uninhibited eroticism.

Less interesting are the scenes in the Hong Kong hotel room. Stone tries to wring tension from Snowden's interaction with Poitras and The Guardian reporters, but it's choppy viewing culminating with a not exactly gripping shouting match between journalists and editors across a laptop connection. The scenes with Snowden's CIA mentors and influencers in the form of Corbin O’Brian and Hank Forrester carry more promise and deserved more screen time.

While the software capabilities at the core of Snowden's growing resentment of the NSA's surveillance programs are briefly presented, this is another film where technology is deemed too complex for anything beyond a cursory description, much like The Theory Of Everything and The Imitation Game.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt carries the film and is fine in the title role, although the personality of Snowden as a pale-faced and introverted techno-geek does not necessarily provide the opportunity for expansive acting. Shailene Woodley gets more freedom to explore the breadth of Mills' emotions, a woman genuinely in love with a man transforming before her eyes into a tortured enigma.

Snowden contains enough of Stone's stylistic touches to maintain interest. But this is a biography that arrives too soon and carries too few surprises to register as a genuinely effective drama.

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Movie Review: The Fault In Our Stars (2014)

A romantic drama, The Fault In Our Stars sets a teenage love story in the world of terminal disease. The film is squarely aimed at the young adult market and never rises above carefully constructed emotions designed to elicit sighs and tears in just the right amounts at just the right time.

In Indianapolis, teenager Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) is a cancer survivor who made a miraculous recovery from the edge of death. She now lives day to day with her defective lungs requiring continuous breathing through tubes connected an ever-present portable oxygen tank. Her parents Frannie (Laura Dern) and Michael (Sam Trammell) encourage her to join a support group where she meets the hunky Augustus "Gus" Waters (Ansel Elgort), and a romance blossoms between them.

Gus has an artificial leg as a result of his own previous bout with cancer. Hazel introduces him to her favourite book An Imperial Affliction by the author Peter van Houten (Willem Dafoe), now a recluse living in Holland. Gus helps Hazel connect with van Houten, who invites her to drop in on him and discuss the book should she ever be in Amsterdam. Despite Hazel's frail health, the relationship with Gus becomes ever more serious and soon they are joined by Frannie for a trip to Amsterdam, where complications await.

Directed by Josh Boone and adapted from the John Green book, The Fault In Our Stars is earnest in its intentions but also almost mechanical in its execution.  For anyone outside the target age group of 12 to 17, it's easy to appreciate the effort but difficult to fully invest in the obvious connect-the-dots story evolution. The attractive stars, the wistful narration, the modern caring parents, the terminal disease, the puppyish love, the trip of a lifetime to a European dream destination, and the caustic author who shatters the illusion that anything matters. Of course it all culminates in true romance and true tears due to true tragedy.

Boone makes the best of the material, directing with restraint and avoiding most of the obvious cliches, except for a jaw-droppingly obvious travelogue montage of Amsterdam and a clumsy side-trip to Anne Frank's house where romance awkwardly erupts in the attic. He is helped enormously by Shailene Woodley, who does shine as Hazel and carries the film through all its patches, never overselling the tough survivor elements and displaying enough warmth as a believably precocious teenager. Ansel Elgort is not as convincing, Willem Dafoe pulls his performance from the scorched drawer, and Laura Dern is relegated to worried but nevertheless reasonably cool mom.

The theme of life and love carrying on and emerging from the wreckage of horrid disease is predictably uplifting, and the film carries its message on its sleeve: it's better to experience the full joys of life despite the inevitable moments of despair than to surrender to emotional numbness in anticipation of the end.

The Fault In Our Stars is efficient to a fault. It delivers on all its calculated promises with admirable quality, and does little else.

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Movie Review: The Descendants (2011)

Families can be torn apart by accident or on purpose. In the soulfully moving The Descendants, both calamities befall Matt King (George Clooney), and he needs to confront and pacify his tortured emotions while learning the basics of parenting to try and stitch together a family survival plan.

Matt is a lawyer based in Hawaii, and the family trustee for a large and valuable piece of pristine real estate. Matt's life is knocked out of balance when his wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) suffers severe head trauma in a boating accident and enters a coma from which she will not recover.

Matt suddenly finds himself the sole parent of two girls. Ten year old Scottie (Amara Miller) is acting all bratty as a reaction to her mother being close to death. 17 year old Alex (Shailene Woodley) has more significant reasons to be upset: just before the boating accident, Alex discovered that her mother was having an affair with real estate agent Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard).

Alex brings in her laid-back friend Sid (Nick Krause) to help her cope, and he is inadvertently a stabilizing influence on the struggling family. Matt breaks the news of Elizabeth's impending death to her father Scott (Robert Forster), and tracks down Brian, whose wife Julie (Judy Greer) is the other victim of the affair. Despite losing a wife and a marriage, Matt must hold on to the remnants of his family and come to grips with a real estate transaction that will have far reaching consequences for his family and Hawaii as a whole.

Every character in The Descendants is dealing with severe loss. Alex and Scottie are losing their mother and the facade of a happy marriage between their parents. Brian, once exposed, is in danger of losing his family and a big commission. Scott is losing his daughter to an accident and his wife to a disease. Julie is losing her marriage. Matt's cousins, who stand to benefit from the land sale, are in danger of losing the opportunity for a big pay day. Even Sid is suffering the after effects of his own family loss.

Matt, at the centre of the maelstrom, is facing losses in every direction: losing his wife, suddenly realizing that he has already lost his marriage, fighting to avoid losing his daughters, losing the respect of his father-in-law, and about to lose his family heritage through a pressure sale. Matt will need to stumble his way out of a maze of sorrow to find a life that holds any remaining meaning, and The Descendants becomes a journey of salvation for a man who refuses to stop looking for life's fire escape.

George Clooney is excellent as a father befuddled by what fate has decided to simultaneously dump on him, and ever so gradually rising to the challenge of making the difficult decisions required to retake control.  Clooney is surrounded by a colourful supporting cast with some sharp edges. Shailene Woodley as Alex demonstrates some evolution to graduate from a rebel terrorizing her father to his greatest ally. It's a tender, if relatively jarring, transition.

Judy Greer briefly - but memorably - appeared with Clooney in Three Kings. Her appearance in The Descendants is also relatively brief but most compelling, as the other injured party in a sordid affair. Greer conveys through her eyes a woman's instinct to sense the sharks moving in to kill her marriage long before she can see their beady eyes.

The rest of the characters in The Descendants do their part in full Hawaiian shirts and sandals glory, Beau Bridges (as one of the cousins) and Robert Forster particularly dominant in their scenes but not bothering with any attempts at nuance.

Director Alexander Payne, who allowed a seven year gap to pass since his celebrated Sideways, keeps life's realities at the core of the film. Humour mixes with pathos, fun with frustration, love with fury, family with business, and nature with human legacy. The Descendants ultimately gets on with what families are meant to do: overcome to the best of their imperfect abilities the most immediate challenge; emerge stronger from the experience; and await the inevitable next test.

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