It’s time to kick off the month with a collection of oddball films that are all a little bit strange and a little bit intriguing. I can’t say any of them were my favorite movie of the year, but each one was thought-provoking in its bizarre little way.
The Killer: Directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker, based on a French graphic novel series by Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon, the film stars Michael Fassbender as the eponymous killer. He is an elite assassin for hire, and we are treated to his interior monologue on how to do this job ruthlessly and efficiently. It is important to be cool, calm, and calculating, without an ounce of empathy or human feeling that could get in the way of this very dispassionate job. However, the movie opens with a botched assassination, and what follows is a twisty thriller that is gory but also kind of funny, where we are following this very self-serious man who has such confidence in his ability to get every little detail right…except now all those details are going wrong. I’m not sure I ever got fully invested in what was happening in this movie (the fact that I watched on Netflix meant that it was also a fairly distracted viewing), but this is probably a good lazy afternoon movie, something to get the blood pumping, with a few unexpected chuckles. It might be too dark and bloody for some folk, but if you like a stylish action thriller and wish Fassbender did more movies, this should be right up your alley.
: Written by Samy Burch and directed by Todd Haynes, this is a story about a woman named Gracie (Julianne Moore) who slept with her 13-year-old student, Joe, was arrested, gave birth to his child in prison, and then subsequently married him years later when she got out of prison and he was old enough to consent to this (the adult Joe is played wonderfully by Charles Melton). Now, a movie is being made of her story and a famous actress named Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) comes into town to shadow Gracie and interview her friends and family about her life and the impact to her community. But what follows is an extreme and weirdly campy story about an actress who goes way too method, an emotionally disturbed woman who still has no sense that she did anything wrong, and a man who is coming to grips with the fact that maybe his relationship is a little bit screwed up and he missed out on his entire childhood.
I honestly don’t know what tone this movie is going for. It’s mostly a bit dark and icky, but the score is kind of absurd and feels like you’re in a heightened soap opera. Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore are turned up to 100, while everyone around them is muted and more in touch with reality. Ultimately, I came away feeling the most sympathy for Joe, and Charles Melton's performance, especially in the final scenes, was startlingly moving. I ended up doing a deep dive into the real-life Mary Kay Letourneau case that this whole movie is loosely based on, and was shocked how so many of the details were identical. It’s a disturbing tale, disturbingly told, so…bravo?
Dream Scenario: Written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, this is a very weird, funny, and sad movie about what happens when an ordinary man named Paul (Nicolas Cage, in yet another odd but remarkable role) randomly starts showing up in the dreams of people all around the world. In these dreams he is usually just walking by, being extremely passive, not doing a thing. At first this is an oddity, but as more people start to realize they have seen him in their dreams, he goes viral. And he, being a bit of a loser who has always aspired to greatness, mistakenly thinks that he will be able to leverage this fame in a way that will serve him. But of course, that is not how the world, and social media, work, and he soon finds himself stirring up a maelstrom.
This movie goes all over the place but it is a tight 100 minutes that is thought-provoking and entertaining. Some of the dream sequences can start to feel like a horror movie, so be prepared for some nightmares, but overall, Cage’s central performance keeps this film on firm ground. You feel for this shlub who got carried away by the promise of Internet fame, and the films proceeds relentlessly, adding in numerous twists to his predicament and making a larger commentary on influencer culture and our capitalist world. It is very funny but also tinged with plenty of melancholy. Isn't that exactly the mood you want for a December film?
No comments:
Post a Comment