Movie Review: Case 39

Case 39 (2009) 

Directed by Christian Alvart

Written by Ray Wright 

Starring Renee Zellweger, Callum Keith Rennie, Bradley Cooper, Jodelle Ferland, Ian McShane

Release Date October 1st, 2010 

Published November 15th, 2010

There was really no good reason for “Case 39,” the horror thriller starring Renee Zellweger, to have sat on the shelf for 3 years. The film is no game changing original in the genre but compared to the kind of horror flotsam that slips into nationwide release on a regular basis in the US, “Case 39” is harmless and forgettable enough that it should have passed through theaters without issue several years ago.

Instead, “Case 39” arrives with the undue burden of a heavy coat of dust that muddies the perception of the film's inherent qualities. It's fair for an audience to wonder what the studio saw in the film that made them want to hold it back and that thought leads to the fair perception that “Case 39” is a royal stinker which it is not.

Emily Jenkins (Renee Zellweger) is a social worker with a lot on her plate. She has 38 open cases of potential child abuse and neglect to deal with when her boss Wayne (Adrian Lester) drops a 39th case on her desk. Naturally, Emily is put off by the new assignment but being the dutiful investigator she is soon at the home of the troubled little girl Lilith (Jodelle Ferland) and her disturbed parents Edward (Callum Keith Rennie) and Margaret (Kerry O'Malley).

Though her visit turns up no direct evidence of abuse, Emily's instincts are that Lilith is being abused and needs more attention and care. She moves the investigation along off the books with the aid of a friendly detective, Mike Barron (Ian McShane), and eventually catches the parents in the action of trying to kill Lilith.

Lilith immediately connects with Emily, even as Emily tries to make clear she has no instinct for parenting. Soon, Lilith has convinced Emily to bring her home to her modest suburban abode and just as soon afterward things start going from serene to weird to drop dead terrifying for Emily and any one in her life from co-workers to Mike the cop to her potential boyfriend, Doug (Bradley Cooper), who becomes a particular target.

It does not take a triple digit IQ to figure out where this story is going. Director Christian Alvart (Pandorum, Antibodies) directs “Case 39” with all of the nuance subtlety of a jackhammer. Alvart's direction of Ray Wright's insultingly simpleminded script signals each twist and turn of the plot with heavy-handed music cues and dimwitted direction.

This would be surprising considering that screenwriter Ray Wright also delivered the clever and thrilling screenplay for the 2010's update of “The Crazies.” Then, one remembers that “Case 39” is going on 4 years old and well before Wright had truly developed his talent. The same could be fairly said about director Alvart who followed up “Case 39” with the dull but efficient sci-fi horror flick “Pandorum.”

Renee Zellweger remains a talented and compelling actress who knows how to draw an audience to her. “Case 39”sadly is just too dopey for even someone of Ms. Zellweger's talent to work around. The plotting is clunky and perfunctory. The supporting players, no matter that they are played by talented familiar faces like McShane and Cooper, are little more than cannon fodder and Jodelle Ferland while cute, cannot carry the burden of a plot that is so poorly drawn.

All of that said, “Case 39”is better, more professionally crafted, than much of the garbage that has been playing to empty theaters in the time that “Case 39” has been gathering dust. I could name at least 100 films far worse than “Case 39” that did not have to carry the burden of being abandoned by it's studio for three years. Is “Case 39” good enough that you should buy a ticket? Maybe not, but if you've bought tickets for such lesser fare as “Piranha 3D” you may as well pledge a little money to “Case 39.”

Movie Review: Tideland

Tideland (2006) 

Directed by Terry Gilliam 

Written by Tony Grisoni, Terry Gilliam

Starring Jodelle Ferland, Brendan Fletcher, Janet McTeer, Jennifer Tilly, Jeff Bridges

Release Date October 27th, 2006

Published November 17th, 2006 

Writer-director Terry Gilliam has always directed his fantasies. Be they weird or myopic or paranoid, Gilliam directs entirely from his imagination, practical concerns be damned. His latest dream-scape is a perfect example. As Gilliam is forced to admit, in a bizarre opening behind the scenes prologue, Tideland is his own fantasy of what life would be like if he were a pre-teen girl. Based on a novel Mitch Cullen, Terry Gilliam's take on life as a tween girl is even more disturbing and bizarre than even his most ardent fans may expect.

Jeliza Rose (Jodelle Ferland), the daughter of a pair of serious heroin addicts, watches first her mom (Jennifer Tilly) and then her dad (Jeff Bridges), die of drug overdoses. The heroin prepared for mom and dad by Jeliza herself, causes her to recede into her self created fantasy world where a witch named Dell (Janet McTeer) and her mentally challenged henchman (Brenden Fletcher) become her pseudo family and the doll heads she wears as finger puppets carry on long, imaginative conversations with her.

Terry Gilliam isn't kidding when he claims this is what his life would be like were he a pre-teen girl. Wild, imaginative, perverse visions of love, death, sex and parenthood are all themes that Gilliam has tackled before. However, Tideland takes Gilliam's extreme fantasies to a whole new level of perversion. Perhaps Terry Gilliam has finally tweaked a puritan part of my brain but I find there to be something very wrong about presenting a Terry Gilliam fantasy through the eyes of this little girl. 

This is a fantasy that includes not just the drug overdose deaths of two parents from heroin doses administered by their own daughter but also the subsequent gutting, embalming, and slow decomposition of the father as the child continues chatting away as if dad were just napping. Then there is the creepy pseudo-romance. The pre-teen girl has a childish dalliance with the mentally challenged guy. In scenes that are both creepy and strangely sweet these two people who have no idea what intimacy is engage in the kind of childish exploration that would be cute if the mentally challenged guy weren't in his mid-twenties and quite insane.

There is, at the very least, some exceptional visual artwork in Tideland. Cinematographer Nicola Pecorini does some fine work giving vivid life to each of Terry Gilliam's most twisted ideas. For better or worse, the look of Tideland is as impressive as the story is disturbing and horrifying. And yet, Gilliam doesn't treat the horror as horror, there is a distinct sense of dreamlike fantasy, not light-hearted really, but Gilliam is not leaning into the horror that is very much present in this story and while some find that dichotomy compelling, I found it repellent. 

Every experience Terry Gilliam's pre-teen protagonist has, from watching both parents die, to the creepy mentally challenged 'boyfriend,' to the presence of the witch in her fantasies, are all played to such a low key whimsy that they barely register. You may watch in horror as scenes of degradation and dark humor play out, but you will also likely find your mind wandering as Gilliam underplays the horror of the scene in favor of  playing off a more goofball dispassionate response from this deeply troubled and traumatized young girl.

Terry Gilliam has demonstrated the genius of his myopic, selfish approach to film-making in movies as varied as 12 Monkeys, Brazil, and Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. In Tideland however, he takes that weird personal vision to its navel-gazing nadir. This is a movie made by Terry Gilliam for Terry Gilliam and while I admire any filmmaker who doesn't bow to audience concerns about what the majority of people want to see, that doesn't make a movie like Tideland fun to watch.