Movie Review The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

Directed by Scott Derrickson 

Written by Scott Derrickson, Paul Harris Boardman 

Starring Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Campbell Scott, Colm Feore, Jennifer Carpenter

Release Date September 9th, 2005 

Published September 10th, 2005

The saying 'based on a true story' is an oft abused term in Hollywood. Case in point the new horror film/courtroom drama The Exorcism Of Emily Rose. The film is based on a true story however the story told in the film is not the true story. The film's creators, however, include a title card that claims the story is true. But the story told in the movie only vaguely resembles the true story that was its inspiration. Make sense?

Not much of this cross breed of TV's "Law & Order '' and the horror classic The Exorcist makes sense anyway so it's fitting that its origins should be so muddled. A shame though because with such a terrific cast The Exorcism of Emily Rose had the potential to be very good.

Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson stars in Exorcism as Father Thomas Moore. Father Moore is on trial for the negligent homicide of a nineteen year old college student Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter), one of his parishioners. The story of how Emily came to be in Father Moore's care is part of an elaborate series of events that leads to one extraordinary trial.

Laura Linney is Erin Bruner, Father Moore's lawyer. An agnostic, Erin is on the lookout for a promotion at her big money law firm and takes on Father Moore's case with the hopes of a partnership. Erin is coming off another high profile case where she got a guy everyone thought was guilty off on a charge of murder. Now struggling with her conscience she finds herself defending Father Moore from charges that he allowed Emily Rose to die while he was in charge of her well being.

So how did Emily Rose die? There are two competing theories in the film. The first and most logical and rational is that Emily developed epilepsy that led to psychosis that caused her to have nightmarish visions and episodes of extreme behavior that included self-mutilation and violence towards her family and friends. Emily stopped eating and eventually starved to death.

However, according to Father Moore, Emily was not sick. Rather Emily was suffering from demonic possession. Satan and various other demons entered Emily's body, fought off the Father's attempt to exercise them and prevented Emily from eating. Campbell Scott plays the prosecuting attorney, Ethan Thomas who quickly makes a farce of the defense's case with simple logical questions and scientific medical testimony.

The trial aspect of Emily Rose is the film's biggest problem. The script saddles the beleaguered Laura Linney with a defense that is so patently ridiculous that she never had a chance of winning any audience member with an ounce of critical thinking ability. I don't want to give away what the defense is, one of the joys of the film is the derisive laugh one has at the expense of the poor lawyer who might think it could work. I will say that it would not have lasted two minutes on an episode of "Perry Mason" or even the light headed "L.A Law".

Campbell Scott as the prosecutor is terrific at presenting his side not merely with a dismissive cast of his eyes skyward while the defense presents its case, though that might have been all it would take to win over the audience. No, Scott also brings eloquence and cold hard reason to the role and looks very much like a real prosecutor. There is a moment during one of the defense witness testimonies where the prosecutor objects to a question and when asked what his objection is he replies "Oh I don't know, silliness", as if he were speaking for the audience.

For her part Laura Linney, one of my all time favorite actresses, can do very little with a role so poorly conceived. Given the defense as it is written in the script has absolutely no hope of convincing anyone and Linney is left to present it with as much dignity as possible and in that respect she made it work. She never allows herself to look as foolish as the script might make her seem.

The script is written by Paul Harris Boardman and director Scott Derrickson and is fascinating for how inept the courtroom scenes are and for how effective the flashbacks to the exorcism are. In the execution of the horror part of the film, Derrickson's direction is very strong as are the characters of Father Moore and Emily.

It's like watching two different movies at once.

The flashbacks to Emily in college where her strange visions and behavior begins are surprisingly strong. Never merely imitating The Exorcist, Director Scott Derrickson shows a great flair and style and brings some old school scares to this otherwise dreary flick. A scene late in the film set inside a barn in a heavy rainstorm is very effective in building tension, and is followed by another effective scene, a dream sequence, in which Emily is visited by the Virgin Mary.

Scenes of faces melting into demonic menace, black cloaked demons and  blood dripping walls are all used to very cool effect and show that Derrickson knows how to direct a good horror movie. But when the scene shifts to the courtroom the film becomes laughable. The worst part is that there were many feasible opportunities to fix this aspect of the film with some simple courtroom logic. Any first year law student could have made a very strong case in Father Moore's favor. Instead the script opts for a defense that no one in their right mind would buy.

The courtroom drama is farce as are the non-flashback scenes outside the court as when Father Moore advises Erin to 'beware of the dark forces surrounding the case'.  Oooh scary. There is also a supremely lame bit where Erin, like Emily and like Father Moore, continuously wakes up at 3:00 AM. This same clock bit was lame when it was used in the remake of Amityville Horror this past spring and in the Bob De Niro flick Hide and Seek back in January.

The film is based on a true story. In Germany in the late sixties a teenage girl became violently, mentally ill. Rather than treat her medically, which would have meant commitment to a mental hospital, the girl's family turned her over to the church which received permission from the Vatican to perform an exorcism. The girl died from starvation and the priests involved and the girl's parents were all tried for manslaughter.

That is a great basis for drama and horror and a logical examination of faith and the limits of science, something I'm sure The Exorcism Of Emily Rose was striving to convey. However, in executing this idea something was lost in the translation. We have half of a good movie and half of a ludicrous episode of Ally McBeal, only with fewer intentional laughs.

Movie Review: Duplicity

Duplicity (2009) 

Directed by Tony Gilroy 

Written by Tony Gilroy 

Starring Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti

Release Date March 20th, 2009

Published March 20th, 2009

Say what you will about the choices Julia Roberts has made over the years, she is a welcoming screen presence. She has the radiance of a 30's and 40's heroine combined with a very modern sexuality and sensuality. Call her America's Sweetheart if you like and attach whatever wholesome qualities you want to that title, the fact is, no one really likes to ponder what draws a man to 'America's Sweetheart'. Here's a hint, it's the same thing that draws us to the girl next door.

Duplicity is the rare Roberts vehicle to acknowledge, if not fully, take advantage of exactly the qualities I am trying to be vague about. The spy thriller/romantic comedy places Roberts at odds and in bed with the always smoldering Clive Owen and the chemistry is alchemic.

Roberts is Claire, maybe her real name, maybe not. When we meet her she is being scoped by Owen's Ray. They hit it off quickly and soon she is showered and heading for the door with something belonging to him and he is unconscious on the bed. Cut to a few years later, Ray, now fully awake, is in Rome and runs across Claire. He, and now we, know she is CIA. He is MI6, British intelligence. He's a bit ticked off about the obfuscation and the robbery but mostly he just wants to see her naked again.

The two spend three days in a Rome hotel making love and a plot is launched. The two spies will get out of the covert ops biz and go private, corporate snoops. Find an industry, discover the deepest secrets and sell the results to the highest bidder. They finally settle on two companies with somewhat complicated ideas about what they are. All we know about Equikrom and Burkett & Randle is that the CEO's, played brilliantly by Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson, loathe one another. They loathe one another to the point that each keeps a corporate spy team on the payroll to steal the other's R & D secrets. This is Claire and Ray's way in.

Duplicity however, is not really about the corporate types but rather about the unique and duplicitous relations between to well trained spies. Roberts and Owen are given by writer-director Tony Gilroy the opportunity to play a pair of screwball romantics who happen to be spies. There craft is deception and trying to figure when the one they love is deceiving them, for business or pleasure, is what they truly delight in.

Gilroy loves, LOVES writing witty repartee for these two characters. He loves it so much that by the end of the movie he seems to have run out and just stops. After exhausting his way through a timeshifting malaise of plotting, Gilroy comes to a certain point and simply ends the movie. It is as unsatisfying as it sounds. One character wins, the others lose and that's all folks.

What remains is a series of sexy, funny, playful scenes between Roberts and Owen that are nearly enough to make this whole mess work. Roberts matches Owen's constant smolder with the effect of tossing a gas can into a fire. These two actors truly enjoy each other's company and we enjoy them together. If only they weren't trapped in a time shifting maze of plot complications that we just don't care about.

Of course, a filmmaker likely couldn't make an entire movie about Julia Roberts and Clive Owen in bed together, but the idea is ten times moe entertaining as any two scenes in Duplicity. Roberts has always been sexy but we tried to forget that for some reason. She was caught with the label America's Sweetheart which had the effect of neutering her and rendering her more an icon of virtue than as a woman. Tony Gilroy and by extension Clive Owen certainly know Roberts is a woman and each is very interested in further examining her feminine qualities. Unfortunately, there is that whole spy thing that keeps getting in the way.

Movie Review The Catcher Was a Spy

The Catcher Was a Spy (2018) 

Directed by Ben Lewin 

Written by Robert Rodat 

Starring Paul Rudd, Sienna Miller, Mark Strong, Jeff Daniels, Tom Wilkinson

Release Date June 22nd, 2018

Published July 8th, 2018 

The Catcher Was a Spy stars Paul Rudd as Morris ‘Moe’ Berg, a former major league baseball catcher turned international spy. Berg played 15 years with the Boston Red Sox before retiring at the end of 1938. By 1941 Berg, known as Professor Berg among his teammates, a graduate of Princeton University, sought and received a position at the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA.

Rudd plays Berg as a man of many secrets and discretion. An early scene finds Berg going to a bar, thought by many as a haven for gay men. When he’s followed there by a suspicious teammate, Berg turns to violence to try to cover his tracks. Later, on a baseball tour of Japan next to luminaries such as Babe Ruth, Berg took the initiative to dress in Japanese garb and covertly film footage of a Japanese naval yard. He then parlayed the footage into his position with the OSS.

Sienna Miller co-stars in The Catcher Was a Spy as Estelle, Berg’s girlfriend. The relationship is fraught by Berg’s unwillingness to commit to Estelle, his desire not to have children and Estelle’s seeming awareness of Berg’s proclivities. A side mistress is less aware leading to an argument that illustrates Berg’s commitment to being discrete, even if it means losing someone he appears to care about.

Once Berg moves toward becoming a spy we meet his new OSS boss, played by Jeff Daniels. Daniels’ blunt, blustering military man turned spy is impressed by Berg’s initiative and ambition though wary of the secrets he keeps from the secret keepers. Nevertheless, it’s the OSS chief who assigns Berg to go to Italy and eventually on to Sweden to investigate how close Germany may be to having an atomic bomb.

Along on the mission in Italy, where he faces down enemy fire from fleeing German soldiers, are an army Colonel played by Guy Pearce and a physicist played by Paul Giamatti. Their target is the well known German Physicist Werner Heisenberg, played by Mark Strong. Heisenberg was one of the few scientists who chose to stay in Germany after the Nazi take over and was appointed head of the German effort to make a bomb.

The question is, is he helping or hurting the German cause? The Catcher is a Spy is ingenious and exciting in laying out Moe Berg’s mission and what is at stake. Having been a major league baseball player turned spy, Moe has never had to kill a man and much tension and drama is built around whether he could, if called upon, kill Heisenberg to keep him from building the atomic bomb.

History tells us how that played out but if you, like me, aren’t fully aware how this turned out, it’s an exciting and exceptionally well told story. The Catcher Was a Spy was directed by Ben Lewin, a Polish director best known for his 2012 feature The Sessions starring Helen Hunt, a film that earned high praise for Hunt who was thought to be a possible Oscar contender. Hunt played a sex therapist working with a handicapped man played by John Hawkes in an equally lauded performance.

Similar acclaim could be coming for Paul Rudd who brilliantly plays Moe Berg. Rudd, known for his work as Ant-Man and as the comic foil of director Judd Apatow in several films, plays Berg very low key, almost unknowable. It’s a complex character to play, a man so insular, who kept his own council, with few broad strokes in his personality. Rudd finds smart beats to play, especially employing Berg’s talent for languages which Rudd and the story use late in the film as part of the spy play. Listen for his intentional lack of accent in an important scene, subtle but ingenious.

The Catcher Was a Spy will be a treat for anyone who loves an old school spy movie, one without the trappings of a James Bond or Jason Bourne. The film played as part of a new series of Independent Films at the Putnam Museum. The Putnam is partnering with the New York Film Critics Series to show 10 independent features unlikely to play at local multiplexes. The next feature for the month of July is yet to be announced.

You can keep an eye out for The Catcher is a Spy on on-demand services such as Amazon Prime over the next few months.

Movie Review: Cassandra's Dream

Cassandra's Dream (2007) 

Directed by Woody Allen

Written by Woody Allen 

Starring Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Hayley Atwell, Sally Hawkins, Tom Wilkinson 

Release Date January 18th, 2008 

Published May 22nd, 2008 

Someday this will be referred to as Woody Allen's London era. Whether this period of Allen's career will be remembered well is still in question. His Scoop was a cute, quick witted comedy that never caught on with audiences. His follow up, Match Point is a devastatingly smart thriller likely to be remembered by Allen fans as a masterpiece.

Now comes Cassandra's Dream another London set thriller that ups the ante on Match Point by going for big stars but comes up short on the smart thrills that made Match Point so brilliant.

Two brothers turn to crime to solve their financial problems only to find themselves not exactly adept. Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell are Ian and Terry Blaine. Ian is a dreamer who aspires to high finance. For now he lives the life of a playboy without the actual means. Terry is more honest of his working class roots. He lives modestly with a longtime, loving girlfriend. His one indulgence is gambling and when we meet Terry he is on quite a hot streak. He eventually strikes it big at the card table to the tune of 30 grand.

Hot streaks however, never last. As Terry risks the 30 grand to get the money he needs to buy his girl a house he winds up 90 grand in the hole. Naturally, Terry turns to Ian for help. Ian for his part has fallen head over heels for a young actress named Angela (Hayley Atwell). What little money he has he hopes to use to keep Angela in the comfort she aspires to. Now however, he must help Terry. With their options limited the brothers turn to their uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) a highly successful businessman. Howard has one condition for a lone, the boys must murder a man who threatens to tear down Howard's multi-million dollar empire.

To say Howard is asking alot is an understatement and that is at the heart of the issues with Woody Allen's latest tale of chance, chaos and morality. Allen has always been fascinated with cause and effect and the idea that while one action may lead directly to another there is no such thing as fate. In the end, Allen's world view is that we are the arbiters of our fate and our consequences. That view certainly plays out in Cassandra's Dream where Terry and Ian are not forced to do anything but decide to do something and then decide their own punishment until the random nature of the world intervenes in all it's unintentional irony and strange ordinariness.

The last shot of the film with the world in order but an emotional shitstorm in the offing is a strong, almost devastating conclusion. Unfortunately, the central crime is so outlandish that you are unable to truly invest in it emotionally. Yes, Terry and Ian are both desperate but are they really so desperate to do what they do? I didn't buy it. I especially didn't buy Ferrell's Terry who turns ashamedly from an average guy into the worst type of Ferrell character, the weepy, whiny mess well displayed in Phone Booth, far less interesting in Alexander, The Recruit and now in Cassandra's Dream.

Ewan McGregor on the other hand is right at home as Ian. With charm that intimates a certain moral flexibility, McGregor's Ian is more suited to the central story than is the caricature that is Ferrell's Terry. It is Ian and his relationship with Amanda that brings home the central themes of the film, the randomness of life, the luck, the chance and the lack of any real grand design. Also, in Hayley Atwell's Amanda we get Allen at his self deprocating best. In the film's best scene, Allen goes meta and breaks down the very existence of her character in the film.

The failure of Cassandra's Dream is unfortunately Allen's inabilty to craft a solid thriller plot to tentpole his favored themes. The Allen intellect, his philosophy on life, death and movies is on well display but fail for not having a structure on which to hang them. Thus Cassandra's Dream is a film of ideas with no driving narrative force that could have, with a little more care, been a devastating dramatic piece ala his previous London set masterpiece Match Point. That film delivers the same themes with a thriller plot that is involving, shocking and purely Allen-esque in how it underlines its ideals.

Rent Match Point and Cassandra's Dream off your Netflix cue.

Movie Review The Ghost Writer

The Ghost Writer (2010) 

Directed by Roman Polanski 

Written by Robert Harris, Roman Polanski 

Starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton, Jon Bernthal 

Release Date March 3rd, 2010

Published March 9th, 2010 

Director Roman Polanski will be forever colored by the crime he committed that drove him out of America. His conviction on charges of statutory rape, he had sex with a 13 year old girl, will forever stain his reputation and whether he ever returns to America to face justice or remains in exile somewhere in Europe he will leave behind a tarnished legacy and a lifetime of movies that might have been.

Because of his crimes many people will forever avoid his movies as a form of protest. Those who make that choice will be the least for it as despite his crime Mr. Polanski remains a master behind the camera. The latest example of his genius is the political thriller The Ghost Writer starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan.

Former British Prime Minister Adam Lang has one of the most anticipated memoirs in the publishing industry. His controversial time as Prime Minister, encompassing the height of the war on terror, his good looks and charm should lend itself to a terrific story and a grand slam bestseller.

Unfortunately, the book stinks and the Prime Minister's original ghost writer, a longtime aide, has died. The book is a shambles and a major fix is needed. Enter The Ghost played by Ewan McGregor, an author for hire who specializes in puffery and wordplay. He will sit with the PM and uncover some details that might turn the book into the bedside reader that publishers look for.

While things begin rather simply, the job of the ghost takes a sinister turn when the former PM is charged with war crimes and he is pressed by his bosses to control the story and keep it all for the book. What the ghost discovers is linked to the fate of the previous ghostwriter, the CIA and the PM's wife, played brilliantly by Olivia Williams.

The plot of The Ghost Writer is intricate and endlessly clever. Roman Polanski adapted it from the work of author Robert Harris who modeled the fictional story on real life British Prime Minister Tony Blair with whom Harris was once close. When Blair began working closely with President Bush, Harris turned and The Ghost Writer was born.

The veiled attack on Blair hovers over the thriller story of The Ghost Writer and the real life conceits serve as a sort of magic trick to distract audiences while Polanski and Ewan McGregor work the thriller aspect for smart, tense and even humorous scenes.

This is a master at work, intriguing us with asides while leaving us gasping with plotting, pace and dialogue. The Ghost Writer is relentless in its smooth pace and enthralling storytelling. McGregor is well matched to the role of the clueless ghost who comes in with no interest in politics and finds himself immediately out of his depth.

Olivia Williams is the standout of the superb cast. Playing the jaded, jilted politician's wife she begins a tense and sexy flirtation with the ghost all the while hiding secrets that nag at the back of your mind until their superb payoff. Pierce Brosnan hasn't been this good since his clever turn in 2005's The Matador. Brosnan combines Tony Blair's boyish energy and charm with an undercurrent of menace.

Kim Cattrall rounds out the cast as Brosnan's loyal aide and likely mistress. The relationship is left tantalizingly off-screen while she flirts with McGregor's Ghost in one of many smart, funny, sexy subplots that keep the audience off balance and searching for clues to the big bad behind all the trouble.

Murder, mystery, sex and politics what more could one ask for in a good thriller. With Roman Polanski behind the camera everything comes together under the eye of a master filmmaker who knows just what buttons to push to keep an audience engaged and grasping for the next clue, the next revelation and the final gut punch finish. Some will find the ending of The Ghost Writer unsatisfying. I feel it was the perfect finish and really the only way this story could end.

Put aside Roman Polanski's crime if you can and you will find The Ghost Writer to be a fantastic movie going experience. A brilliant thriller from a brilliant director who has maintained a mastery of filmmaking even as his personal life has been an absolute disaster.

Movie Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 

Directed by Michel Gondry 

Written by Charlie Kaufman

Starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, Tom Wilkinson

Release Date March 19th, 2004

Published March 18th, 2004 

Jim Carrey's attempts to move into “legitimate acting" are often maligned even before they are seen, even by people who call themselves fans. It seems that whenever someone leaves their comfortable, often-mediocre niche we Americans have set aside for them. We go out of our way to shove them back in with harsh and often unfair conjecture. Jim Carrey is a very obvious victim of this niche society.

His latest attempt to escape his niche is the Charlie Kaufmann scripted Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Carrey plays a somber, sweet, romantic lost soul while Kaufmann's script provides the weirdness that Carrey usually provides with his physical schtick.

Carrey is Joel Barish who one day decides to blow off work and take a train to his favorite beach. Nevermind that its winter. On the train ride back, Joel meets Clementine (Kate Winslet), an acid-tongued wild child with an obvious sweetness beneath her punk veneer. They begin a tentative flirtation that is about to lead to Joel's bed when suddenly the opening credits roll and the film begins again.

From there, we are lost in a time warp of Joel's memories and sadness. After Joel and Clementine broke up, Clementine went to a place called Lacuna Corp and had all of her memories of Joel erased. Out of spite, Joel goes to Lacuna to do the same to her. With the guidance of Lacuna's founder Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) and his staff, Joel is told that all of his relationship can be eliminated with a procedure that is technically brain damage, but is only “on par with a night of heavy drinking.”

Joel agrees to the procedure, which is to take place in his apartment while he sleeps. A pair of Lacuna technicians (Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood) come to Joel's apartment after he's asleep and spend the night erasing his memory. Once Joel is actually undergoing the process, he realizes there are some memories of Clementine he does not want to give up. His fight to save some of those good memories is the thrust of the plot.

Who doesn't have a relationship that they would consider erasing from their memory? For me it would be Michele, my high school girlfriend. We were together for three years as a couple and several years as friends afterwards. We loved and we hated in almost equal measure the entire time we've known each other. For all of the pain that she caused me and I caused her there are a number of really good times that I would not be willing to give up. That is the central theme of the film and the way it's explored on the screen is not just the film projecting emotion on to the audience. Rather, the audience is a participant in the emotion.

The film is not exactly as straightforward as I describe it. Writer Charlie Kaufmann and director Michel Gondry have a number of unique twists and turns that make Eternal Sunshine an amazing, mind-bending experience. It's an old school science-fiction storytelling device using technology, in this case a rather low-tech technology, to tell a very human story. Sci-fi without aliens or complicated special effects, sci-fi just used to tell a good story in a very different way.

This is a rather uncomplicated, almost simplistic way to write a relatable story. Painful breakups are a universal experience and Kaufmann uses that universality as a jumping off point to a different way to tell a sad, romantic story. There have been movies that explored the same themes of love and loss. What Kaufmann does is what the best modern screenwriters do, take a conventional idea and twist it. Plots that have been done to death can still be done well if you give them at least one unique twist.

With the help of a Michel Gondry's visual mastery, Charlie Kaufmann found more than one unique twist he could give to the love and loss story, the romantic comedy and the sci-fi picture. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film that should be shown in film classes for years to come as inspiration for original ideas from traditional sources.

For Jim Carrey, this is yet another brilliant performance that will go unnoticed. The film is unlikely to make many waves at the box office and despite positive critical notice, the March release of the film dooms its Oscar hopes. Carrey can still take heart however in the one truth of great art. It's never appreciated in it's own time. Maybe years from now someone will dig this film out of a vault with barely a memory of Carrey's schtick and discover Carrey's talent.

Movie Review: In the Bedroom

In the Bedroom (2001) 

Directed by Todd Field

Written by Todd Field

Starring Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, Marisa Tomei, Nick Stahl, 

Release Date November 23rd, 2001 

Published January 15th, 2002 

Sissy Spacek reminds me of someone I know, I can't quite place it but I feel like I know her. That is an excellent quality for an actor or actress to have, it becomes less like acting and feels real. When I watch her, it feels for me like I'm watching a real life in progress, and it's that quality that she brings to In The Bedroom and makes the films actions that much more tragic.

Bedroom is the story of a family in Camden, Maine. Mother (Spacek) is a teacher, Father (Tom Wilkinson) a doctor and their son (Nick Stahl), who is preparing for college. Of course nothing is ever what it seems, the parents are happy but argue greatly over their son's choice to date an older woman (Marisa Tomei) who is divorced with two kids to go with a violent ex-husband. The setup is combustible but director Todd Field never creates an air of inevitability, instead he allows the story to flow to conclusions that are shocking but not all that surprising. 

I'm struggling to avoid giving away too much, though the plot twists are not shocking surprises, they're not surprising if you actually watch the movie. The film is very realistic. How many times in your life has something happened that is shocking and tragic but you said to yourself that you could kind of see it coming? That is how this movie feels.

Director Todd Field is best known as an actor for his role as Tom Cruise piano player friend in Eyes Wide Shut, where Field says he spent a great deal of time studying at the feet of the master Stanley Kubrick. Although stylistically you don't see much influence I think In The Bedroom is a film Kubrick would have appreciated with it's slow studied pacing and desperate protagonists expertly played by Spacek and British character actor Tom Wilkinson.

Of the film's few flaws I would say the lack of chemistry between Nick Stahl and Marisa Tomei is the most obvious. The films glacial pacing works for the most part but drags in the middle. These criticisms are overcome though by the brilliant performance of Sissy Spacek that is the heart of this very good film. 

Movie Review The Debt

The Debt (2011) 

Directed by John Madden 

Written by Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, Peter Straughan 

Starring Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Martin Csokas, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson

Release Date August 31st, 2011 

Published August 30th, 2011 

"The Debt" is one of the bigger disappointments of 2010. A phenomenal cast, including Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Chastain, led by Oscar nominated director John Madden deliver a movie that is truly riveting until the final 15 minutes when the film flies so far off the rails that it trashes all that came before it.

"The Debt" tells the story of three Mossad agents who travel to East Germany at the height of the Cold War in an attempt to capture a Nazi war criminal (Jesper Christensen). This particular criminal is hiding out as a gynecologist thus creating the need for a female agent to join a pair of male agents already in place.

Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain) is just 25 years old and working as a translator when she is drafted for this dangerous mission. She joins mission commander Stephan Gold (Martin Csokas) and the man who will pose as her husband, David Peretz (Sam Worthington), in East Germany where she will pose as a patient for the Nazi and get close enough to render him unconscious.

The mission is undoubtedly the most exciting sequence in "The Debt." Director John Madden brings an arm rest, squeezing tension to the scene where Rachel takes down the doctor and her fellow agents sneak the doctor out the side door. What happens next I will leave you to discover.

"The Debt" employs a shifting timeline that allows us a glimpse 30 years into the future. In the future Rachel's daughter has written a book about her mother's heroic actions in the capture of the butchering Nazi criminal. Rachel, now played by Helen Mirren, however, indicates by her lack of cooperation with her own daughter's book that something happened on the mission that we aren't entirely aware of.

Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds play the elder versions of Stephan and David and while Stephan has parlayed the results of the mission into a highly successful political career, David disappeared for a very long time before emerging on the eve of the release of Rachel's daughter's book.

What drove David underground and has Rachel feeling intense guilt? I will leave that for you to discover should you decide to see "The Debt." Sadly, I don't recommend that you do see "The Debt." Despite a few terrific scenes, another terrific performance from It-Girl Jessica Chastain, brilliant in both "The Help" and "The Tree of Life" earlier this year, and a very compelling turn by Helen Mirren, "The Debt" has a massive flaw that it cannot overcome.

The massive flaw, which I will not reveal, is in the film's ending. It's one of those endings that, if you're like me, will leave you shaking your head and wanting to say to director John Madden: Really? In an apoplectic fashion reminiscent of the SNL Weekend Update snark.

I cannot stress enough how wildly disappointing this ending is. The end of "The Debt" reduces the film to a message so juvenile and parochial that you just can't believe the filmmakers wasted their time with it. More importantly, you can't believe they wasted your time and that of this brilliant cast who deserved so much more.

"The Debt" is among the biggest disappointments of the year. There is so much good in this movie that only an ending as wildly ludicrous as this could take the movie from potential Oscar contender to a movie that I cannot recommend because of its massively, wildly flawed final minutes.

Movie Review Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton (2007) 

Directed by Tony Gilroy 

Written by Tony Gilroy 

Starring George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sidney Pollack 

Release Date September 24th, 2007 

Published September 23rd, 2007 

George Clooney has long been a movie star but I have never thought of him as much of a capital A Actor. That has changed however, thanks to his terrific performance in the flawed new thriller Michael Clayton. This John Grisham-eque legal thriller allows Clooney to flex those charismatic movie star muscles and dig into a character and give a heartfelt, conflicted and oh so believable performance.

The rich and the super-rich can sometimes find themselves in situations that even their lawyers can't get them out of. That is when they are turned over to Michael Clayton. He is 'the fixer', the guy who makes problems go away. So, when the New York law firm where Michael is in business, has a partner flip out in the middle of a deposition in an extremely important case, it's up to Michael Clayton to fix it.

The partner is Howard Eames (Tom Wilkinson) a longtime manic depressive who has gone off his meds. During a deposition in a case involving a high powered farm chemical company and a group of family farmers, Howard stripped naked and began telling one of the plaintiffs how much he loved her. Running naked through the streets, Howard claimed that the stench of his misdeeds in this case forced him to strip himself of his sins. Naturally, it falls to Michael Clayton to try and fix this situation. However, when he discovers that Howard may not be entirely nuts, Michael finds his own conscience being tested.

Michael Clayton is a flawed, near masterpiece of suspense and a story of redemption for a morally questionable character. Written and directed by Tony Gilroy, with a career best performance by George Clooney, Michael Clayton suffers slightly from being overlong, just over two hours, and with just a few too many of those convenient moments where characters perform unmotivated actions solely for the purpose of furthering the plot.

A few convenient moments however, cannot upend the mesmerizing performance of George Clooney on who's work alone Michael Clayton is a must see. Clooney has always been a "movie star" but in Michael Clayton he is an actor and he delivers a tough, vulnerable character at the end of his rope. Self loathing replacing his usual confidence, Clooney's Clayton isn't quite down on his luck but he's on his way. Clooney nails both Clayton's desperation and his attempt at redemption.

One of the things I found interesting but mostly unsatisfying about Michael Clayton was the odd bit of optimism in the story. The film is about an evil corporation that will do anything to anyone in order to hide their misdeeds and the crusading lawyer who goes to any length to punish them. Though people are murdered and others are threatened the film tries to have it both ways in terms of cynical corporate misdeeds and the optimistic idea of how that evil is punished. Myself, I would have preferred an equally cynical solution to such cynical action. As it is, it works well enough, especially because of the way Clooney carries it all off, but a darker more malevolent solution might have played stronger.

Another quibble I have with Michael Clayton is a little too much tell and not enough show. We are told that Michael is a fixer for rich clients in a bind. The description conjures images of backroom deals, payoffs, and shady characters. And yet, we never actually see Michael in action. We are told how good he is, how he can slither out of any situation but that's it, we are just told. What we see is Michael lamenting his place in the world but without the example of why he so laments and it's less effective.

All of that said, Michael Clayton is solidly entertaining despite its flaws. George Clooney has never been this good. His movie star-ness in check, Clooney shows the kind of talent that people have underestimated throughout his career. Tough but vulnerable, charismatic without being overwhelming, Clooney is mesmerizing in a role that should earn him an Oscar nomination. On Clooney's performance alone Michael Clayton is worth the price of admission.

Movie Review Girl With a Pearl Earring

Girl with a Pearl Earring (2004) 

Directed by Peter Webber 

Written by Olivia Hetreed 

Starring Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy, Essie Davis 

Release Date January 16th, 2004 

Published January 15th, 2004 

A surprising amount of information is known about master painter Johannes Vermeer. He was born, raised, and lived his entire life in Delft in the Netherlands. He married in 1653, had 12 children and created 35 works of art that have managed to survive to this day. His most well-known and well-regarded painting is The Girl With A Pearl Earring. The film inspired by that painting is a fictionalized account of the life of the girl who inspired the masterwork.

Scarlett Johannsen stars as Griet, a handmaiden sent to work in the home of the artist Vermeer played by Colin Firth. The master painter has gained a good reputation and the unending regard of a wealthy patron Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson). It is Van Ruijven that makes Vermeer and his family's lifestyle possible by buying each of his paintings. It's not a perfect relationship; Van Ruijven is troubled by the length of time it takes the artist to complete his work, and Vermeer is uncomfortable with his patron’s demanding commissions.

Griet comes to work for the Vermeer family and immediately catches the eye of Van Rutjien. Charged with cleaning the artist’s studio, she also catches the eye of the artist but not entirely the way you might think. The relationship between Griet and Vermeer has tension but it remains chaste for the most part. Nevertheless Vermeer's wife Catharina (Essie Davis) is endlessly suspicious of the relationship.

That relationship is stressed further when Van Ruijven commissions Vermeer to paint Griet for his private collection. Van Ruijven has a history of sleeping with Vermeer's models, a scandalous series of affairs that the painter and his family are forced to cover up from Van Ruijven's wife. Handling most of the cover up is Catharina's mother, Maria Thins (Judy Parfitt), who acted as Vermeer's agent. Griet is able to avoid the advances of Van Ruijven but her problems don't end there as her modeling must be kept from Vermeer's wife.

The drama of Girl With A Pearl Earring is somewhat thin by modern standards. In the day and age of Monica Lewinsky and the tabloid exploits of the British Royal family, social standing is a rather quaint concern. The tension between Griet and Catharina is undermined a great deal by the fragile and passionless performance by Essie Davis. Her whining about the handmaiden wearing her pearl earring doesn't register the impact that I'm sure screenwriter Olivia Hetreed intended. That may be about the writer not establishing the symbolism of the earrings, but mostly it's Davis's performance that fails the material. The performance needs a little more life and energy. 

Colin Firth also fails, but that is because he is badly miscast as Vermeer. Wearing one of the least convincing wigs of all time, Firth's very British stiff upper lip betrays the bohemian artist type he is supposed to be playing. His face is a cold mask that communicates little inner life. Firth's Vermeer takes no joy in his work, seems to live in a constant funk, and never shows the potency that was obvious in the life of the real Vermeer who turned out 35 impressive works and 12 children.

The film's bright spot is Scarlett Johannsen whose gorgeous saucer eyes communicate a rich inner life that is fascinating with no need for words. Indeed it is a mostly wordless performance; Johannsen's Griet is a silent servant who always follows orders. Things happen around her and she merely tries to do her duty without making waves. That may not sound exciting, but with Johannsen's wonderfully expressive face it is truly fascinating. Like the characters surrounding her, you desperately want to know what is going on inside her and yet she hardly says a word.

First time feature director Peter Webber, who's wife Olivia Hetreed adapted the script, makes the bold choice not to use voiceover. A bold choice because Griet, the main character, barely speaks a word. Most writers and directors would use voiceover to fill in dramatic plot points but Webber and Hetreed trust their star to communicate what is needed with her eyes and they got exactly what they needed from Johannsen.

This is Johannsen's second star-making performance in less than 12 months--the first was an even better performance in Lost In Translation. This is both a career blessing and a curse. A blessing because few actresses get the opportunity to give two terrific performances in one year, a curse because she will have to compete against herself for Oscar nominations. Either performance is deserving of recognition but her performance in Girl With A Pearl Earring is certainly more complicated because the film surrounding it isn't as good as she is.