Movie Review Life Partners

Life Partners (2014) 

Directed by Susanna Fogel 

Written Joni Lefkowitz, Susanna Fogel 

Starring Gillian Jacobs, Adam Brody, Leighton Meester, Greer Grammer, Gabourey Sidibe 

Release Date December 5th, 2014

Published December 25th, 2014

Making room in life for our people's people is not an easy thing. No man has lived without the experience of the girlfriend or even wife of the long time friend who's intrusion into their life is among the most significant disruptions in their life. When my best friend got married he was already moved away and living apart from me which actually made the transition in our lives easier. His wife and I are Facebook friends and get along splendidly on holidays. 

Other friends have married and the transition has been bumpy, awkward and on more than one occasion the friendship simply vanished. The thoughtful, funny new movie "Life Partners" is about a significant life-interruptus moment for a pair of female friends whose co-dependency was a defining trait. 

Sasha (Leighton Meester) and Paige (Gillian Jacobs) are the kind of friends who are announced as one person upon their arrival, as if Sasha's last name were And-Paige. They have jokes so deeply inside that to introduce them to others is to mystify them further. Take their obsession with the pop institution known as "Top Model." I doubt 'Model' host Tyra Banks could keep up with the stream of giggling asides Sasha and Paige cram into just a couple of scenes. 

So, when Paige meets and hits it off with Tim (Adam Brody) we know Sasha is about to take a serious loss. Tim is affable and has a good map for Paige's weirdness in the same way Sasha does; turning them, naturally, into competitors for Paige's attention. Of course, Tim is going to win; the plot has kicked in before the end of the first act and we know that the subject of the film is how we deal with our friend's new friends. How Sasha comes to cope with Tim while forging her own new bonds and longing for her bond with Paige is how the story will play out. 

That Sasha also happens to be a lesbian is surprisingly unimportant. Just ten years ago a filmmaker would be forced by convention to play on a secret longing Sasha has for her best friend to also become her lover. Here however, we have not a boundary breaking movie but rather a movie that is knowledgeable enough and modern enough not to bother with such old school thinking. Sure, it comes up, but only in a bitter, thoughtless tirade from an angry supporting player. 

No, director and co-writer Susanna Fogel is forward thinking enough not to waste time with the sexual politics and focus on two friends growing up, growing apart and growing together again. Maturity comes from learning that you aren't the center of everyone's world and that your people's people are also the star of their own story and not a supporting player for your wants and needs. It's only when Sasha stops seeing Tim as the villain in her story that she can mature and move on and make her way forward with Paige as two adult friends. 

I've been waiting for a movie like this for a long time. I've often wondered when someone might tell a story about friends and friends of friends that isn't some vacuous series of dinner party conversations or some trifling mumblecore B.S masquerading hipster ideas of friendship as deep insights. "Life Partners" is a movie for people struggling to grow up and then finally, actually growing the fuck up. What a refreshing notion. 

Movie Review The Box

The Box (2009)

Directed by Richard Kelly 

Written by Richard Kelly

Starring Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Gillian Jacobs

Release Date November 6th, 2009

Published November 6th, 2009

It has been years since Richard Kelly burst on the scene with his visionary indie flick Donnie Darko. With its twisting, turning, spiraling plot and psychotropic imagery, it's no surprise that Donnie Darko became a cult favorite. Since that unconventional masterpiece Richard Kelly has foundered. 

His follow up, the dystopian L.A sci fi flick Southland Tales was marked by delays and budget issues before finally arriving to collective ignorance. Now comes his first major league feature. The Box has the stylish inventiveness of Darko but with a more conventional plot.

Cameron Diaz and James Marsden star in The Box as Norma and Arthur Lewis, a struggling upper middle class couple living in the suburbs of Richmond Virginia with their young son Walter (Sam Oz Stone). Their lives are thrown for a loop when one day a package is left on their doorstep.

Inside the box is a wooden stand with a glass top and a tempting looking red button. The button is locked and a note inside the box informs that a man will arrive the following day with the key and an offer. The man is Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) and the offer is 1 million dollars if the Lewis's choose to push the button.

The catch, if they push the button someone, somewhere, a person they have never met, will die. With Arthur having been denied a promotion at NASA and Walter's tuition at private school going up unexpectedly, that million bucks would come in handy. Can they live with killing someone?

The moral complications of their choice are not so much the subject of The Box. The decision to press the button comes quickly with a minimum of weighty conversation. What Richard Kelly is more interested in is a complicated little mystery plot involving mind control and maybe even aliens.

The morality stuff is dealt with but the decision is all too simple. Once those in the audience decide for themselves what they would do the film becomes a waiting game as plot strands are plucked while others dangle unresolved. Once I made my decision I was left uninvolved by the rest of the film.

I know quite simply that I would never push the button. I could not live with taking someone's life, even a complete stranger. The debate, what there was of it, and the aftermath were meaningless to me. Once the characters make the decision to press or not to press the button there is nothing much left for the movie to do but dither about in the subpar mystery stuff.

The look of The Box is exceptional. The ways in which Kelly evokes the movies of the 1970's with his soft focus lens and spectacular attention to detail are engrossing. It's the same immersive quality that Kelly had in Donnie Darko and failed to bring to Southland Tales.

The Box is a terrific looking film that succumbs to the ease of convoluted mystery at the expense of an intriguing moral quandary. The paranormal stuff could be interesting but it feels false next to the ethical dilemma that should be central to The Box. As it is, it's an intriguing idea comes out flat and uninteresting.