A Ghost Story

A Ghost Story is a film that just about blew my mind at Sundance this year.  It stayed with me for quite a while and I eagerly anticipated its wide release so I could see it again.  I have to say that I found it to be even more profound upon a second viewing on Friday night and I was not alone in my reaction.  The entire audience stayed seated in absolute silence long after the credits had rolled and the lights had come back on.  The narrative revolves around a man (Casey Affleck) who dies in a car accident and returns, shrouded in a sheet, to the home he shared with his wife (Rooney Mara).  He stays and watches her as she grieves and then eventually moves away.  He continues to haunt the house for decades as it is occupied by various people, is demolished, and is replaced by a high-rise building until he is finally able to let go of his attachment.  There is another ghost haunting the house next door until he is able to leave behind a person he is waiting for.  The ghost is one of the most sympathetic characters I've ever seen on film, even completely shrouded as he is, and the long, sustained shots with very little action are strangely compelling.  The score is very evocative and greatly enhances the otherworldly mood.  As previously mentioned, I found many of the themes to be so moving.  I've always believed that the spiritual aspect of humanity is more important than the physical which is, indeed, impermanent.  We must ultimately leave behind our attachment to people, places, and things to progress on our journey.  It is enchanting to believe that we leave behind a piece of ourselves and that we will be remembered but our time here is temporary and time inevitably and inexorably moves on.  We don't really belong here in this physical plane.  I know I will be thinking about these ideas for a long time to come and I suspect that this beautiful film will provide even more philosophical musings each time I watch it.  I must admit that A Ghost Story might not appeal to everyone.  It is a high-concept film and you must commit to this concept fully in order to appreciate it but, if you can, you will be forever changed by its powerful message.

Maudie

Thursday I spent the afternoon in a darkened theater full of senior citizens (seriously, I was the youngest person there by decades) watching Maudie, the real-life love story between Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis (Sally Hawkins) and her husband Everett (Ethan Hawke).  Maud suffers from a debilitating form of arthritis (although we don't learn the nature of her ailment until almost the end of the film) and her brother and aunt consider her to be a tremendous burden.  One day she answers an advertisement to be a maid for a curmudgeonly and reclusive fishmonger, mostly to get away from her aunt.  Everett lives in a dilapidated one room shack in rural Nova Scotia and he treats Maud very cruelly, even telling her that his dogs are more important than she is.  She begins painting simple flowers, trees, and birds on the walls to brighten her grim existence.  She eventually worms her way into Everett's heart and they marry, although he is still very gruff with her.  She paints cards to deliver to all of Everett's customers and attracts the attention of a wealthy New Yorker on vacation who commissions a painting which brings her national exposure.  She spends the rest of her life selling her paintings outside of her tiny shack and when she dies Everett realizes how much he loved her.  While the film tells the story of Maud's life and career as an artist, the narrative focuses on the relationship between the two lonely outsiders and it is such a poignant story.  My favorite line is when Maud says that they are like two mismatched socks!  Sally Hawkins gives an incredible performance that is sure to be remembered during awards season and this is an Ethan Hawke like you've never seen before.  I feel that I have unjustly pigeon-holed him as the goofy deadbeat dad that he has portrayed lately (see here, here, and here) but he surprised me because he is marvelous in this multi-layered role.  After a while I didn't even notice that I was watching Ethan Hawke.  In addition, there are some stunning shots of the surrounding landscape (Canada is a beautiful country) and I really enjoyed the score by Michael Timmins (of the Cowboy Junkies, a favorite band from my youth).  I highly recommend this lovely film.

Note:  I am not very familiar with Sally Hawkins but she seems to be everywhere at the moment.  This performance captivated me and I am really looking forward her next film, The Shape of Water.

Summer Reading: Eligible

The next selection on my summer reading list was Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld. I was really looking forward to this novel because it is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, one of my favorite novels of all time. I absolutely hated it and, before you accuse me of being a purist, I loved Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame Smith because I thought it was so clever. Eligible is not clever; it is absolute rubbish. Liz Bennett is a writer for a gossip magazine and Jane Bennett is a yoga instructor, both of whom live in New York.  Liz is in a long term relationship with a married man named Jasper Wick and Jane, concerned about her biological clock, is inseminated by a donor. The two of them are called back to their home in Cincinnati when their father suffers a heart attack. They end up staying for the summer to sort things out because the family's rambling Tudor home is in a state of disrepair and the Bennetts are living well beyond their means because Mrs. Bennett is addicted to shopping and the three younger girls are sponging off their parents. The family is invited to a Fourth of July barbecue hosted by the Lucases where they meet Chip Bingley, a contestant on a popular TV program (like The Bachelor), and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy, a Harvard educated brain surgeon. Mrs. Bennett is a fan of the TV show and encourages Jane's relationship with Chip while Liz takes an immediate dislike to the snobby Darcy (although that doesn't stop them from having casual sex with each other). Chip and Jane eventually break up when Jane discovers that the IUI has been successful and that she is pregnant while Liz spurns Darcy's proposal (for no discernible reason). The rest of the novel is about getting the two couples back together (in a trashy televised ceremony for Chip's TV show). Ugh! I hated so many things about this novel. It is almost as if Sittenfeld was trying replace every plot point in the original novel with the most salacious details possible. I hated what she did to all of the characters: Liz is a cynical woman involved with a married man, Jane is a passive woman who lives off of the kindness of others, Mary may or may not be a lesbian simply because she is intelligent, Kitty and Lydia are crass and vulgar young women, Mrs. Bennett is racist and homophobic, Mr. Bennett is nasty to everyone, Mr. Bingley is a simpering weakling, Mr. Darcy is bland and unappealing, Miss Lucas is unmarried because she is overweight, Mr. Collins frequents prostitutes, and Miss Darcy is anorexic. I didn't care about any of them by the time I reached the bewildering end. It took a long time to reach the end because the story is bloated with so many useless details such as the names of every single street Liz passes as she runs in the morning, a disgusting spider infestation, and an interview with a feminist named Kathy De Bourgh that does nothing to advance the plot. Ugh! The original novel is a brilliant comedy of manners but this novel has reduced the beloved characters to people without any manners to speak of. Avoid this novel at all costs.

Have you read Eligible? What did you think?

Dunkirk

Last night I went to see Dunkirk and it was probably the most immersive movie I have ever seen.  The evacuation of hundreds of Allied soldiers from the seaside town of Dunkirk after the German invasion of France is told from three different perspectives: land, sea, and air.  On land we follow a British soldier (Fionn Whitehead) as he attempts to evacuate from the beach on one ship after another over the course of a week.  On sea we follow a civilian (Mark Rylance) who takes his boat across the Channel to rescue as many soldiers as he can in one day.  In the air we follow an RAF pilot (Tom Hardy) as he provides air support for one intense hour.  The events are portrayed in a non-linear manner and we see some of the same events happen multiple times but the three timelines eventually converge for a dramatic conclusion.  The audience is dropped in the middle of the action with very little exposition or character development and I've heard many people criticize the movie for not having a plot but in my opinion the story is survival.  I loved all of the small acts of heroism that are portrayed and Christopher Nolan lets these events unfold without a lot of dialogue or manipulative music cues (more about that later).  The cinematography is brilliant (I wish I could have seen it in 70mm) and I felt like I was in the middle of the fighting, especially the aerial dogfights.  I frequently found myself holding my breath and, at one point when the cockpit of a downed plane was filling with water, I realized that I was lifting my head up to avoid drowning myself!  The action is unrelenting from the opening scene until the final credits and much of it involved practical stunts rather than CGI.  Hans Zimmer's remarkable score, which includes a synthesized ticking clock, is incredibly ominous with a sense of urgency that adds greatly to the tension.  The large cast does a great job but there are a few standouts for me:  Kenneth Branagh has a very poignant scene as a naval commander coordinating the evacuation, Harry Styles is much better than anticipated as a soldier on the beach (his character is a bit of a jerk but he plays him well), and Cillian Murphy is quite convincing as a shell-shocked soldier rescued from the water.  This film just blew me away!  In my opinion, it is a masterpiece and it definitely needs to be seen on the big screen!

Kiki's Delivery Service

Last night I saw Kiki's Delivery Service, the next film in the Studio Ghibli Fest.  I enjoyed My Neighbor Totoro so much that I decided to see the rest of the films in the series.  This film is about a 13-year-old witch in training named Kiki who must leave her home and travel to a new place to discover her destiny.  Believing that her talent is for flying, she begins delivering items using her broomstick and we follow her on her adventures.  Eventually self-doubt causes Kiki to lose her ability to fly and her friends must help her to regain her confidence.  I loved this movie so much!  I think I loved it even more than My Neighbor Totoro because I related to much to the character of Kiki.  She is incredibly resourceful in finding her way in a hostile world, including finding a place to live and a way of earning money all on her own.  She encounters many obstacles in her delivery service but she uses her ingenuity to solve every problem and I found her to be such an empowering character.  However, the characteristic that I enjoyed the most in Kiki is her kindness.  She is kind to everyone around her and it is that kindness that eventually brings her rewards in the end.  I loved that message!  I also liked the fact that Kiki is a real 13-year-old girl with typical teenage problems, especially in her relationships with other teenagers.  She is so authentic!  Jiji, Kiki's black cat, is also a really fun character and the source of much laughter at my screening.  The setting is a beautiful, almost European, seaside city and the animation is so colorful and vibrant.  This movie is just delightful and I highly recommend it!  Go here for more information about the Studio Ghibli Festival.