Movie Review Summer Hours

Summer Hours (2008) 

Directed by Olivier Assayas 

Written by Olivier Assayas 

Starring Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Kyle Eastwood

Release Date March 5th, 2008

Published November 2nd, 2008

What French director Olivier Assayas accomplishes in 1 hour and 42 minutes of his simple, heartfelt Summer Hours, is something most American directors will never be capable of. With little incident and not one forced moment, Assayas rivets the audience. Here is a sparse yet warm family drama that never resorts to neurosis or pandering though it so easily could.

It's a remarkable thing to behold. It's not that nothing happens in Summer Hours but rather that Mr. Assayas sees no need to underline things, no need for punctuation and absolutely no need for the devices most American writers and directors use to shove an audience from one scene to the next.

The story unfolds at a glorious French manse where three adult children of Helene have come to celebrate her 75th birthday, though she has no patience for the counting of the years. Helene is foremost concerned with her death and with the legacy she has been building and maintaining for decades.

The home had belonged to Helene's uncle, a famed painter. He passed decades ago and Helene has made it her life's work to give him a life after death. Now with her passing she is painfully aware of all that will happen, her life's work will be carved up and sold away. That sounds dramatic but Helene treats it as a simple fact and the sadness lingers until indeed she does pass.

Her children are not unkind or insensitive; they've merely moved on and begun building their own legacy. Jeremie is a successful shoe company exec living in China, Adrienne lives in New York City and is successful in the fashion biz. Frederic, the oldest, is the only one of Helene's children still living in Paris. He's an economist and author with two kids of his own.

Perhaps because of proximity or perhaps because he has all the paperwork to do, Frederic is the most attached to the home and his mother's belongings. Jeremie and Adrienne are not indifferent but far more practical. Neither will be able to make use of the house, they could all use the money and the art has a home waiting at the Musee D'Orsay. 

You can see the potential for great melodrama. You can assume Frederic to cause trouble and drama. You can expect these things but they never come. Instead, in a true rarity, all the characters act as adults and treat the situation as real adults do. There are hurt feelings and some tears, but for the most part, Summer Hours is a movie about how a functioning family deals with loss. 

A quietly brilliant movie, Summer Hours is likely too gentle for audiences raised on modern American drama. For fans of a more refined taste, Summer Hours is a hypnotic, peaceful joy of a movie.

Movie Review: 'Bee Season'

Bee Season (2005) 

Directed by Scott McGehee, David Siegel 

Written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal

Starring Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche 

Release Date November 11th, 2005

Published November 11th, 2005 

The narrative balancing act between explaining too much and not enough is quite a metaphorical tightrope for a filmmaker. Critics like myself tend to jump on a film that over-explains its plot through dialogue or image or excoriate a film for being too obtuse and inaccessible. In the case of the movie Bee Season, starring Richard Gere, the latter is the problem. The film, based on a novel by Myla Goldberg, is so inside itself in terms of characters internalizing their motivations that following what seems like a simple narrative about family strife becomes a herculean task of assumption on top of assumption.

Saul Naumann (Richard Gere) is a professor of Jewish studies and an avid follower of kabbalah. He is also a loving father to his son Aaron (Max Minghella) and daughter Eliza (Flora Cross) and a caring husband to his wife Miriam (Juliette Binoche), at least on the surface. Underneath it all Saul is driven zealot who has made his son's religious education an all consuming quest.

Aaron is a prodigy of religious studies who can recite passages of the Torah from memory. He flourishes under his father's attention even if it can be suffocating at times. The father-son bond is put to the test when younger sister Eliza shows an aptitude for spelling. Being a follower of kabbalah, Saul believes words are the keys to the universe, a path that leads directly to god. He see's Eliza's gift with words as an opportunity to reach the religious transcendence that neither he nor Aaron have achieved.

Aaron, seeing the attentions of his father taken away, rebels by following a beautiful woman named Chali (Kate Bosworth) into the beliefs of the Hare Krishna. Meanwhile Miriam withdraws from the family into a secret life of kleptomania that see's her breaking into strangers homes and stealing shiny objects.

Each of these plots evolve individually around Gere's character. Saul is an often overbearing presence who's religious obsessions tend to overwhelm good judgement. However, he is not nearly the bad guy the plot seems to want him or needs him to be. Saul is shown to be a very caring father who showers love and praise on his children and his wife, makes dinner for the family every night and wants only for everyone to be happy. For the plot to work Saul has to be more of a problem than he really is.

The script for Bee Season, adapted by by Naomi Foner-Gyllenhaal, seems to want us to believe that Saul's lavishing attention on Eliza is too much for the whole family to take. Unfortunately the film never bothers to demonstrate why this is such a big problem. Neither Aaron or Miriam object to Saul's treatment of his daughter, probably because Eliza is a willing accomplice avidly accepting her father's indulgence.  So what is the problem that causes Aaron and Miriam to rebel?

Aaron's subplot about joining the Hare Krishna is played as both an earnest interest in achieving religious transcendence and as a teenager rebelling against his father. But there are scenes missing that might clarify just which is the more significant motivation. Aaron is alternately a true believer seeking religious enlightenment and an impulsive teenager who follows a hot girl into a cult like behavior that he knows will really irk his devout father. The film is far too vague about Aaron's true motives for us to care why he does what he does.

As for Miriam, the film never thoroughly examines how she is affected by her daughter's success and her husband's subsequent obsession. Though we are often diverted to scenes of Miriam sneaking into strangers homes and stealing shiny trinkets the movie never bothers to explain how this behavior relates to the rest of the film. Is it a cry for help or attention? Is it mental illness? How is Miriam's troubled behavior related to Saul's obsession with helping his daughter win the spelling bee?

Though the plot of Bee Season flows from Saul's actions, the focus of the film is Eliza and her unusual gift with words. Eliza does not so much spell the words given to her as experience them in her mind . In the spelling bee scenes Eliza closes her eyes and the words begin to materialize around her in special effects renditions of the words themselves. Given the word origami, Eliza imagines a paper bird alighting upon the individual letters which she repeats aloud. I suppose this is an indication of some kind of divine intervention but how do you explain how she had this gift before she began studying kabbalah with her father.

In Myla Goldberg's novel it is Eliza's narration that binds these various plot strands together. Her first person perspective guides us through the motivations of the other characters and clarifies the narrative. In the film however, co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel begin with Eliza's narration then quickly abandon it. Bee Season is the rare film that could benefit from narration which often is a screenwriting crutch and in the wrong hands a hack device. The plot of Bee Season is so convoluted and obtuse that only narration could bring together these diverging stories.

12 year-old Flora Cross delivers an extraordinary performance in Bee Season. Her halting voice always just above a whisper and her often downturned gaze hide a spark of ingenuity that provide the few remarkable moments in this otherwise unremarkable film. Cross is riveting in a calm and assured veteran performance from a 12 year-old girl in her first starring role.

If only the rest of the film had been as focused and engaging as Cross. Unfortunately Bee Season can't pull itself together. The script introduces one plot then abandons it to begin another one only to abandon that shortly after. Plots like Miriam's kleptomania are introduced, forgotten, returned to and yet never connected to the rest of the film. Aaron's flirtation with the Hare Krishna is dropped in on but by the end of the movie is all but forgotten.

And somehow through it all, despite his not being a bad guy, all of the family's troubles are heaped on Saul whose sin seems to be that he is too loving and too attentive. Saul could be a little more benevolent in giving attention to each of his children equally and not just when one child meets his various obsessions but for the most part he is shown as a great guy and a caring dad. Gere gives a strong performance but as written the character is basically untenable.

For Bee Season to work Saul has to be a sort of villain. Not exactly a menacing presence but distant, overly driven, a little selfish. Character traits that could help us understand why his family, save Eliza, resents him so much. Without some sharper edges on Saul it's hard to believe the family would fall apart as they do.

It is fair to wonder if the novel Bee Season was simply unadaptable. So much of the family troubles are internalized which is well translated in the written word. But translating inner monologue to outward action is not simple. Movies require a level of explanation that can be difficult to define. How much is too much or too little explanation is impossible to calculate. In the end Bee Season comes up short and it's a shame because the performance of Flora Cross is so good I really wanted to like and recommend this film. But I can't.

Movie Review The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) 

Directed by David Fincher 

Written by Eric Roth 

Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Mahershala Ali, Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Juliette Binoche

Release Date December 25th, 2008

Published December 23rd, 2008

It is extraordinary what technology can do in the movies these days. In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 45 year old Brad Pitt ages from a little old man to a youth ripe teenager before our eyes. It's stunning really and yet still remote. That is the nature of modern special effects. For all the genius and wonder, technology will never be able to replace one person relating to another on the most human levels.

Brad Pitt does what he can with the role that is given him in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's unfortunate that beyond the technology, there isn't a whole lot there. In 1918 a baby boy was born and seemed as if he should have died. He was aged, infirmed. He had cataracts and arthritis. He was abandoned by his father on the doorstep of an old folks home where the kindly nurse Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) took him in. He wasn't supposed to live through the night.

Several years later Benjamin is a little boy with all of the wonder of youth but he looked like a man in his 60's. When Benjamin was 13 years old he met Daisy Fuller. She was a few years younger but her keen intuition told her that Benjamin was somehow no different than herself. They became friends and every weekend, when Daisy came to visit her grandmother, they would play together.

When he turned 17 Benjamin took a job on a tugboat under Captain Mike (Jared Harris). Benjamin went all over the globe. In Russia he had his first kiss. He went on to war and eventually back to New Orleans. He and Daisy would reconnect and their love story is the centerpiece of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The most curious thing about Benjamin Button is that nothing much interesting happens to him. Yes, he went around the world but we don't see much of his travels. We see him in Russia but most of those scenes are spent in a hotel lobby. He went to war and was part of a notably sad incident but if you are waiting to see it play out as an aspect of his life and you will be left waiting awhile.

As written, the character of Benjamin Button is a blank screen in front of which colorful characters pass and are soon forgotten. Brad Pitt's contribution is his handsome visage which begins weathered under heavy makeup and CGI and slowly becomes more perfect and handsome. I know some will not require much more of Mr. Pitt but I did. This is a character filled with possibility and Mr. Pitt doesn't seem to explore the space. He remains a blank screen, only becoming active in a few scenes where he and Cate Blanchett send each other smoldering gazes. They are smoking hot together but again, I needed something more.

Cate Blanchett on the other hand smolders and suffers and delivers the one truly in depth performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Under extensive amounts of makeup, Blanchett and Julia Ormond as her daughter slowly recall the story of Benjamin from his diary. Blanchett is then seen as a young ballerina with porcelain skin that would shame Edward Cullen in sunlight. Blanchett is radiant and carrying almost all of the film's dramatic burden she damn near makes the movie work. Sadly, Pitt's blank slate and a script by Eric Roth that turns Benjamin into an old man version of Forrest Gump, leaves Ms. Blanchett dancing all by herself.

Director David Fincher is an artist beyond reproach. The way he melds the CGI and the real world is astonishing. Even more impressive are the scenes he creates with little help from the computers. A scene where Ms. Blanchett is seen dancing on an empty stage while attempting to entice Benjamin into their first trust is unbelievably beautiful. It's a scene that will be part of my memory for the rest of my life, even as the movie as a whole will fade relatively quickly.

There are breathtaking images in Benjamin Button which lay the uninvolving story all the more bare. I went in hoping to get some insight into a very unique character and left knowing what I knew about Benjamin Button when I came in. He is a boy who ages backwards. That alone is notable but how does it really affect him? What is his inner life like? The screenwriters never figured that out. What's left are a series of images and colorful supporting players and little to no insight into the man whose name is in the title.

Movie Review: Dan in Real Life

Dan in Real Life (2007)

Directed by Peter Hedges

Written by Pierce Gardner, Peter Hedges

Starring Steve Carell, Dane Cook, Juliette Binoche, Dianne Wiest, John Mahoney, Emily Blunt

Release Date October 26, 2007 

Published October 25th, 2007 

Peter Hedges' film  Pieces Of April was a funky little indie feature about family and togetherness, secrets and lies. The visual style was risky in how disjointed and even at times ugly and stylishly amateur it was. Now, Peter Hedges is moving up to big time mainstream filmmaking and it seems that the move to the studio has taken away his flair for the risky and the funky. His latest, Dan In Real Life, could not be less risky or funky. A straight laced genre romance, Dan In Real Life is a warm but extraordinarily dull little mainstream sitcom, something of a disappointment for a rising star director.

Steve Carell stars as Dan Burns, an advice columnist raising three daughters. Dan lost his wife years ago and is convinced that he is done with relationships. That changes on a family trip to Rhode Island where his parents (Diane Wiest and John Mahoney) live in a lovely beach house where the entire extended family gathers for a week every year.

While getting away for a few hours from his daughters, each of whom are upset with dad for different reasons, Dan meets Marie (Juliette Binoche). The two spark a conversation about books that leads to coffee and scones and eventually to Marie giving Dan her phone number, despite the fact that she is town with her boyfriend and is meeting his family. What a shock then, that the boyfriend happens to be Dan's brother Mitch (Dane Cook). Now Dan must decide whether he should risk everything and pursue his brothers girl or deny the first new love he's felt since his wife passed away.

Nearly everything about Peter Hedges' charming directorial debut Pieces of April is missing from the machine like Dan In Real Life. Churning through the required scenes of a romantic comedy, Dan In Real Life feels forced throughout. The fake vibe of the whole enterprise rises to levels of smarm that are nearly stomach turning.

If Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche weren't such terrifically lovable actors Dan In Real Life would be an absolute chore to sit through. As it is, Carell and Binoche have almost zero chemistry together but just enough likability for us not to be entirely bored by them. Without resorting to mugging or cuteness, Steve Carell still manages to squeeze a couple of laughs out of this story but not nearly enough to make Dan in Real Life worth watching.

As for Juliette Binoche the lovely French actress coasts on her talent in a role she could have performed in her sleep. There is nothing really challenging in this script, unless you consider pretending to want Dane Cook, a challenge, and some might. Dan In Real Life throws highly typical romantic comedy roadblocks in front of Binoche and Carell and both actors go through the motions of not being together before the inevitable and obvious conclusion.

Director Peter Hedges is far more talented than this sitcom in movie clothing suggests. I can't help but feel that Dan In Real Life and not Pieces of April is the anomaly of his career. Pieces of April was smart and funny and a little risky in both the storytelling and style. Dan in Real Life is the antithesis of risky. Nothing could be less risky than this puppy dog romantic comedy made from the leftovers of several other dull, forgettable romances.

Movie Review Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell (2017) 

Directed by Rupert Sanders 

Written by Jamie Moss, William Wheeler, Ehren Kruger 

Starring Scarlett Johannsson, Takeshi Katano, Michael Pitt, Juliette Binoche 

Release Date March 31st, 2017 

Published March 30th, 2017 

Is “Ghost in the Shell'' offensive? It’s certainly tone deaf and in poor taste but offensive? That depends on your perspective. I wasn’t offended by “Ghost in the Shell'' per se, though I oppose the white washing of the casting, I am also practical and cynical enough to understand it from the perspective of a profit driven business. That the film is the subject of such controversy only shines harsh light on the film’s artistic failures, even if better art would not negate the controversy. 

“Ghost in the Shell” stars Scarlett Johannsson as Major, a secret agent with a not so secret super power. Major is mostly a robot but with a human brain. She is relatively invincible, impervious to most things, but with human intellect and instincts. Major was the subject of an experimental surgery undertaken by a secretive organization for which Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) serves as the public face and the seemingly benevolent doctor who saved Major’s mind, if not her body.

Major is tasked with tracking down Kuze (Michael Pitt), a hacker/terrorist who is targeting the scientists and doctors who created the Major. Kuze claims to have a secret about Major that is being repressed in her mind through drugs the company claims she must take in order for her mind not to reject her cybernetic shell. It’s a secret that the filmmakers hope will cure them of white washing allegations, even as it only serves to make things worse in the eyes of many.

“Snow White and the Huntsman” director Rupert Sanders helmed “Ghost in the Shell” and he has certainly created a feast for the eyes. The futuristic Asian setting is rich with glittery, bright colors and tech similar to other sci-fi visions of the future such as “Minority Report,” minus that films’ visual wit. “Ghost in the Shell” is quite pretty with star Scarlett Johansson only adding to the visual delights.

That said, the spectacular visuals do serve to underline the emptiness at the core of the story. While the original anime “Ghost in the Shell'' was about identity and what made someone human, the live action “Ghost in the Shell” has been sheared of the subtext in favor of more of a revenge movie in which Major eventually begins to seek vengeance against those who kept secrets from her related to how she ended up a cyborg.

The change dumbs the movie down into a more mainstream action movie because hey, audiences don’t like to ponder existence when there are simple thrills to be had. This is not the fault of Johansson who seems to want something deeper in her performance but it’s just not there onscreen. This could also be the function of multiple screenwriters culling the deeper themes through series after series of rewrites, the film has three credited screenwriters including the subtext challenged Ehren Kruger.

I don’t hate “Ghost in the shell.” It’s not poorly acted and the visual splendor is undeniably fun. I must admit, I am knocking “Ghost in the Shell” for the most part, for not being the movie I wanted it to be and not for the movie that it is. The movie that “Ghost in the Shell” is is a shallow yet dazzling action movie that will satisfy the base action movie audience with their brains turned off.

I’m also reviewing the film’s politics which isn’t really fair either. From a business standpoint casting Scarlett Johansson makes more sense than casting a more appropriate Asian actress with less name value. From that very base, cold, cynical perspective I can’t fault “Ghost in the Shell,” I can only ask why it had to be “Ghost in the Shell?” Why go for the full Asian aesthetic and then cast white people, the setting has no impact on the story and could be transported anywhere. 

Why not rip off the concept, move it to New York and abandon the burden of white washing accusations in favor of the much easier to deflect cries of ‘rip off?’ The controversy only harmed the film which otherwise would have likely skated to modest success as a standard, simpleminded action movie instead of being pilloried on its way to underperforming.