Movie Review: Bird Box

Bird Box (2018) 

Directed by Susanne Bier

Written by Eric Heisserer 

Starring Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich, Lil Rel Howery, Machine Gun Kelly 

Release Date December 14th, 2018

Published December 14th, 2018 

Bird Box stars Sandra Bullock as Mallory, a pregnant artist whose sister is killed when an apocalyptic event begins to cause people to take their own lives. Mallory is rescued by Tom (Trevante Rhodes) who helps her get into a nearby suburban home where people have begun to fortify. Douglas (John Malkovich) is opposed to Mallory coming in the house but the owner, played by B.D Wong, welcomes her.

Also in the home is an older woman played by Academy Award nominee Jackie Weaver, a trainee cop played by Rosa Salazar, a drug dealer played by rapper Machine Gun Kelly and a grocery store clerk played by Get Out standout, Lil Rel Howery. It’s Lil Rel who theorizes that an end of the world scenario has begun. He appears to have plenty of evidence to back up his claim but we will soon realize that why is not particularly important.

Meanwhile, the film jumps 5 years in the future. Mallary is now alone with two young children whom she calls, simply, Girl and Boy. Her refusal to name them is part of a character trait she’s built from the beginning of the story with her own pregnancy which she apparently was never particularly excited about. She was worried when she was pregnant that she could not bond with her child and the unpredictable nature of the apocalypse has only deepened her conviction about keeping a child at a distance.

That distance is important as Mallary must risk the children’s lives by taking them on a perilous journey down an empty river while blindfolded. In the past, our heroes eventually suss out that if you keep your eyes covered and you don’t see the evil that is causing people to take their lives, you can get around these demonic monsters. The only people seemingly immune to the evil are the mentally deranged who will provide a secondary villain as the movie progresses.

Bird Box was directed by Danish filmmaker Susannah Bier from a screenplay by Arrival Academy Award nominee, Eric Heisserer. The film is far from perfect but the tension and the minor touches of humorous jump scares are wildly entertaining. Malkovich is on fire in this movie as the ultimate jerk who just happens to be right all the time while Moonlight star Trevante Rhodes makes for a terrifically hunky leading man for Bullock.

You may have heard all about Bird Box from the memes alone. Netflix has hit a social media goldmine with this sight deprived thriller giving audiences a seemingly endless number of quips and screen grabs of jump scares and hot takes. A scene where a characters eyes are forcibly held open so that she can die at the hands of whatever demon is at play has gone viral with numerous punchlines while Bullock’s fearsome mother figure has been raised up as the ultimate example of tough motherhood because she does everything while blindfolded. Take that deadbeat dads.

Honestly, I don’t know if I love Bird Box or the viral version of Bird Box that has become a legend on Twitter. There are blockbuster comic book movies whose supporting characters don’t get shouted out by name on social media yet you can’t help but see twitter users referring to Gary or Olympia or Douglas. The film is a terrifically fun thriller but the film’s other life as a seemingly endless meme generator is even more fun.

Bird Box has many issues, not the least of which is never giving the evil a face or a motivation. The lack of a singular focus for the evil nearly renders the whole of Bird Box as silly as it is in M Night Shyamalan’s ‘the tree’s did it’ thriller, The Happening. Bird Box even cribs that films use of the wind as a harbinger of doom plot devices. Thankfully, the performances from Bullock, Rhodes and Malkovich never let Bird Box tip completely into parody.

Director Susannah Bier is certainly not doing anything particularly original here, especially in the wake of the far more skillful and terrifying, A Quiet Place having come out in just the last 10 months. But, Bird Box has enough of its own charms and modest scares to stand on its own as a genuinely entertaining popcorn thriller. The memes probably helped more than the film itself to make me recommend Bird Box, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit how thoroughly entertained I was by Bird Box.

Movie Review: Things We Lost in the Fire

Things We Lost in the Fire (2007) 

Directed by Susanne Bier 

Written by Allen Loeb 

Starring Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny, Omar Benson Miller, Allison Lohman

Release Date October 19th. 2007 

Published November 5th, 2007 

The Oscar curse is over for Halle Berry. After subjecting herself and us to the horrors of mainstream flotsam like Catwoman, Perfect Stranger and Gothika, following her well deserved Oscar for Monster's Ball, Halle Berry is back in stride in Things We Lost In The Fire. This difficult drama, co-starring Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro, brings Halle Berry back from the brink with a character every bit as memorable and deeply affecting as her Monster's Ball award winner.

Steven Burke (David Duchovny) was loved by his family and loyal to his friends. He was the kind of guy who would go out of his way for you, friend or stranger. When he died, he left a hole that would be impossible to fill. Steven's death is the dramatic drive of Things We Lost In The Fire which stars Halle Berry as Steven's wife Audrey and Benicio Del Toro as his troubled best friend Jerry.

Playing out in flashbacks and flash forwards we see Steven as the Mr. nice guy that he was, we see his funeral and its aftermath. The style sounds distracting but under the skilled eye of director Suzanne Bier we are never lost or confused. Bier uses this style to great advantage, setting up dramatic points and paying them off with powerful, cathartic moments.

Benicio Del Toro's Jerry is a heroin addict and yet Steven remained his friend. Taking time week after week to drop in on Jerry, Steven is saint-like in devotion to his old friend. When he dies, Jerry is the last to know and his arrival at the funeral in his rumpled over sized suit and dark circled eyes, is greeted with great discomfort.

Despite her obvious discomfort, Audrey is driven to take up her husband's cause and check in on Jerry. When she see's him honestly attempting to get sober; she does what she thinks Steven would have done and invites him to stay in their garage, easily converted to a small apartment. The conceit sounds strained, she has two kids and brings a virtual stranger and drug addict to live in her home? It's a stretch but Berry and Del Toro make us believe it.

Suzanne Bier is from Germany and she brings a distinctly European conceit to Things We Lost In The Fire. Focusing on her actors to tell the story, rather than employing an arching narrative, Bier gets inside these characters through the eyes of her actors. Tight close ups, right on the eyes truly give us a sense of these characters' pained souls.

Things We Lost In The Fire can be oppressively sad at times. This is a very downcast film. It's about loss and pain and heartache. On the other hand it's also about remembrance, recovery and catharsis. Allison Lohman plays Kelly in the film, a member of Jerry's narcotics anonymous group and she has a moment in Things We Lost In The Fire that is beautifully bold and probing. It's about remembering, it's about forgiveness and it leads to more powerful moments of catharsis.

John Carroll Lynch, so good in David Fincher's Zodiac earlier this year, is a real scene stealer as Steven and Audrey's neighbor, Howard, who adopts Jerry as his new best friend. Desperately unhappily married  Howard is kind of pathetic but in a cheery sort of way. He first meets Jerry at Steven's funeral and after Jerry moves into the garage, Howard insinuates himself into Jerry's daily life, eventually offering to help him get a job.

Like the tremendous star turns of Del Toro and Berry, these supporting turns are nearly flawless in their execution and in the way that director Suzanne Bier reveals them.

Things We Lost In The Fire has a few minor issues. The structure can be a little jarring and there is one scene, late in the film, between Del Toro and Berry involving her asking him about drugs, that is truly wrongheaded, nevertheless this is an exceptional film. The acting is phenomenal. The direction is of near perfect pitch and though it is admittedly grim in tone, the cathartic moments more than make up for the sadness.

Hey, sometimes a good cry isn't such a bad thing.