Movie Review: Compliance

Friday, August 24, 2012

Movie Review: Compliance

Compliance

Directed by: Craig Zobel.
Written by: Craig Zobel.
Starring: Ann Dowd (Sandra), Dreama Walker (Becky), Pat Healy (Officer Daniels), Bill Camp (Van), Philip Ettinger (Kevin), James McCaffrey (Detective Neals), Matt Servitto (Supplier), Ashlie Atkinson (Marti), Nikiya Mathis (Connie), Ralph Rodriguez (Julio), Stephen Payne (Harold), Amelia Fowler (Brie).

Compliance tells one of those stories that if were not true, you would never believe it. I cannot be the only person who when they got home from this extremely disturbing movie –you won’t see a more disturbing movie this year – I looked at up the true story online. Surely writer-director Craig Zobel made at least part of this story up – embellished it and pushed into darker places than the real story. But that simply isn’t true in this case. The facts of the real case are pretty much exactly as they are laid out in the movie. That alone would make Compliance a disturbing movie. What makes it a great one is that Zobel and his cast make these characters feel real. They have added the human element that the facts of the case are missing. And that makes Compliance all the more compelling.

The movie almost takes place in real time, over one Friday evening at a “Chickwich” fast food joint in Ohio (in real life it was McDonald’s in Kentucky, but I bet they didn’t want to be sued, and there is no way McDonald’s would let them shoot in one of their locations). That evening the manager, Sandra (Ann Dowd) receives a phone call from someone identifying himself as Officer Daniels (Pat Healy, who spends most of the movie as a disembodied voice on the phone). He tells her that one of her employees just stole money out of a customer’s purse – and his “surveillance” team who has been watching her as part of a larger operation can verify this. What he needs Sandra to do is bring the employee, a 19 year old blonde named Becky (Dream Walker) back to the office so they can talk. He first wants Sandra to check her pockets, then her purse. And finally, he wants Sandra to conduct a strip search of Becky. Officer Daniels tells her she has her regional manager on the other line, and that the police will show up shortly and take over, but this is a time sensitive matter, and they really need her help. Things escalate from there, especially when Officer Daniels asks Sandra to get a male to watch Becky until they get there as a security measure – not able to spare any more staff members, Sandra calls her boyfriend Van (Bill Camp), and soon the movie is going to a much darker place than we thought possible.

I think the smartest thing that Zobel does in Compliance is that he makes it Sandra’s story even more than Becky’s. It would have been easier for Zobel to make this movie about the wide eyed, innocent Becky who is tormented and tortured by a seemingly never ending parade of bad guys, but he does not do that. What Sandra does in the movie is awful, but it every decision she makes, Dowd makes seem real. The movie starts with a few small scenes that sketches out everything we need to know about Sandra is just a few minutes. Sandra is a woman who is undoubtedly a little disappointed with her life (who the hell wants to be Fast Food Manager when they grow up?), and her interactions with a delivery man inform us that Sandra doesn’t have any children of her own (and regrets this) and that she thinks she can handle more responsibility than she has been given. Her speech to her employees – mostly a group of apathetic teenagers – will ring true for anyone who has ever had a McJob before – or the manager, this is a career, and should be taken seriously – for everyone else, it’s just a way to make a few bucks. And finally, and most tellingly, watch her in a scene between her and Becky, and another employee, before the rush comes – how Sandra tries to compete with Becky’s talk of all her hot boyfriends, by telling them that she is sure Van is about to propose, and how she reacts when Becky dismisses this news with a patronizing “That’s cute”. There is a chilling moment when Sandra just looks at Becky from behind some shelves. Sandra, in short, doesn’t do what she does simply because she was duped by a “police officer” on the phone – she does it because she WANTS to be duped. She wants to think of herself as more important than she really is someone the police would actually call upon for help. And while outwardly, she seems so nice and sympathetic to Becky, underneath, she wants to punish her as well. Dowd, who has had a long career as one of those character actresses who shows up in everything, but you don’t really notice, delivers an Oscar caliber performance here – she suggests so much with her face – and lets the audience decide why she is doing what she’s doing. This is a complicated performance, because Sandra, while certainly not blameless, is not really a bad person either – just someone who believed what she was told all too willingly, because she wanted to believe.

This complexity extends to the other characters as well. Dreama Walker has a nearly impossible role to perform as Becky, but she does so brilliantly. The performance makes her go from a typical, thoughtless teenager, to confusion and outrage at being accused of something she didn’t do and then she gradually regresses – into a terrified young woman, so scared that she does things she had to logically know no police officer would ask her to do – she’s just too terrified to say no. Bill Camp is also excellent as Sandra’s boyfriend Van – a typical, sluggish, loser type who has “settled” for Sandra, but when he’s told what to do by Officer Daniels, he goes along with it – it’s a sick turn on for him, partly because Becky is the type of young, pretty girl he could never dream of getting. He knows the difference between right and wrong – but he goes ahead anyway. The role with the least complexity is Officer Daniels himself – although Pat Healy is great in the role as well. He is more one dimensional than the rest – a straight ahead pervert who is getting off on what he’s making everyone do, and the fantasies it inspires. At times, he seems to almost not believe that he has actually gotten them to do what they have.

Compliance is also brilliantly well made by Zobel – who gets the grimy atmosphere of a fast food joint precisely right – and juxtaposes images of people going about their jobs, or having their meals, against the horror that is happening right in the next room. Zobel, making only his second feature, has made a remarkably claustrophobic movie – seeing the film in the theater is the right way to see it, that way, just like the characters, you are trapped in a small room, and stuck dealing with the uncomfortable reality on the screen.

Compliance has already become perhaps the year’s most controversial movie – and was right from its first screening at Sundance, where some audience members booed and heckled the film and the filmmakers, and some booed and heckled the booers and hecklers. In the screening I was in, a 60 year old couple sitting behind me came in, and after about 45 minutes, through which there was occasional, audible gripping from the husband, he got up and informed his wife that the movie was disgusting and he was leaving – only to reappear five minutes later, apparently shocked that his wife didn’t follow him out, and told her that he wasn’t waiting around for her, he was going home to which she responded “Good. Go home” and he stormed out. I can only imagine what conversation they had when she got home later – but it will undoubtedly echo the conversations of a lot of people who see Compliance. Compliance is not an easy movie to sit through – and it shouldn’t be – and is one that I think it’s impossible to be indifferent about. It strikes an uneasy chord in the audience, who would like to sit there and feel superior to the characters on screen – would like to think that they would be smart enough to see through the ruse, and refuse to go along with it – whether they were in Sandra’s or Becky’s or even Van’s situation. But the reality is much more troubling, and I think audiences sense that. The movie’s story is not unlike the infamous Milgram experiment, where a study discovered that 65% of people tested would send an electric shock powerful enough to kill, through an unseen person as long as they were assured it was all part of an experiment – and they wouldn’t be blamed for anything. Milgram conducted his experiment just months after the trial of Nazi War Criminal Adolf Eichman in because he wanted to know just how easy it was for an authority figure to get someone to go against their own sense of morality – and apparently, it is remarkably easy.

Compliance is a movie that wants to press the audiences buttons – wants them to respond to it, even if that response is disgust, like that old man sitting behind me or those hecklers at Sundance. And push those buttons the movie does. You may love Compliance, you may hate it – but you certainly won’t forget it.

Movie Review: The Bourne Legacy

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Movie Review: The Bourne Legacy

The Bourne Legacy
Directed by: Tony Gilroy.
Written by: Tony Gilroy & Dan Gilroy.
Starring: Jeremy Renner (Aaron Cross), Rachel Weisz (Dr. Marta Shearing), Edward Norton (Retired Col. Eric Byer, USAF), Stacy Keach (Retired Adm. Mark Turso, USN), Dennis Boutsikaris (Terrence Ward), Scott Glenn (Ezra Kramer), Corey Stoll (Zev Vendel), Neil Brooks Cunningham (Dr. Dan Hillcott), Zeljko Ivanek (Dr. Donald Foite), Albert Finney (Dr. Albert Hirsch), David Strathairn (Noah Vosen), Louis Ozawa Changchien (LARX #3).

Through the first three films in the series, the Bourne movies represent modern, American action cinema at its finest – especially the two installments directed by Paul Greengrass. Yes, Greengrass likes to use the shaky camera work and rapid fire editing that I often find annoying, but he does it better than just about anyone else working right now. When The Bourne Ultimatum came out in 2007, it seemed like a good place to end the series – it brought the series to a fitting conclusion, and nothing more really needed to be done. But movie studios don’t like to leave a profitable franchise until they have wrung every last box office dollar out of it. So, after a five year layoff, the Bourne movies are back – but without Jason Bourne, and perhaps even worse news for the franchise, without Paul Greengrass. Instead of Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne, the trained assassin with amnesia, we get Jeremy Renner’s Aaron Cross, who knows exactly who he is, but is still on the run because Bourne has become a news story, and the government needs to clean up the mess he has created – including the program that Bourne led to, which Cross was a part of. And instead of a great action filmmaker like Greengrass, this film was co-written and directed by Tony Gilroy (who has writing credits on the previous three Bourne movies), whose only directorial credits are the brilliant legal drama Michael Clayton, and the comedic heist picture Duplicity. And yet, while I know that this movie is in many ways just a cynical attempt to make money off a franchise that has reached its natural conclusion, and while I will admit that the film is not nearly as good as any of the previous Bourne movies, I do have to admit that The Bourne Legacy works. This movie is much better than it really should be.

Much of the credit for the success of the movie is due to Jeremy Renner, who had big shoes to fill in the lead role, and does an excellent job. Renner has a natural believability about him – most likely forged in his years as a character actor before The Hurt Locker made him a star. Renner has to perform physical feats that are, logically, impossible, but because he has an effortless charm, and look of fierce determination, you do believe him. You also like him, which isn’t an easy thing considering we know that he voluntarily turned himself into a killing machine. Still, you root for him, which is essential in this movie. He is ably supported by the rest of the cast. Rachel Weisz, an actress I run hot and cold on, hits the right notes as a doctor who finds herself in way over her head, and having to depend on Aaron for her life. And Edward Norton and Stacy Keach are well cast as the two head government honchos bad guys because both are capable of appearing to be really bad guys – and that’s all that is required of them. And that great TV baddie Zeljko Ivanek may have a small role, but it is unforgettable, as he goes on one of those infamous work place shooting sprees, which is simply chilling – even more so given recent events.

And it also must be said that Gilroy acquits himself quite nicely behind the camera. On the basis of his first three films, it doesn’t appear like he has much of an original style behind the camera, but he does quite ably steal from Greengrass – using a little less shaky camera work and rapid fire editing, but still incorporating enough of it that this movie certainly feels like a member of the same series as the previous films.

The Bourne Legacy cannot possibly have the same impact as the previous films in the Bourne series, simply because this is now the fourth time were seeing it. And yet, as a film unto itself, it works quite nicely. It is exciting, well-acted and not quite as dumb as most action movies. It also has one of the best car chases (ok, motorcycle chase) in recent memory. No, The Bourne Legacy is not a great film, but it is an entertaining action film.

Movie Review: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Movie Review: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Directed by: David Gelb.

Jiro Ono had to leave home at the age of 7 to fend for himself. He never really saw his parents again after this point in his life, but eventually he does find his calling – sushi. He apprenticed for years, before finally becoming a master in his own right. Now, at the age of 85, he is widely regarded as the greatest sushi chef in Japan – which, of course, means he is the greatest sushi chef in the world. He has an almost unthinkably small restaurant – just 10 chairs lined up at the bar. The starting price for a meal at his restaurant is 30,000 yen (roughly $300), and you are in and out in about 20 minutes. Jiro serves nothing but sushi – you get 15 to 20 pieces in one sitting. His methods are well known and simple – it`s just that no one quite does it like Jiro does. And he has no plans to stop, unless he is physically unable to do so. He hates vacation and holidays.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi has become an art house hit, and it`s easy to see why. Jiro is a funny, charming, happy man and the documentary is easy going, light entertainment that makes even someone like me, who likes sushi but doesn’t love it, want to go out and get some. The sushi we see during the course looks delicious, and will certainly make you hungry. In some ways, the movie reminded me of last year`s audience charmer Bill Cunningham New York. Both films are about men obsessed with their jobs, but seem truly happy doing what they love. And good for them.

But Jiro Dreams of Sushi has a sad undercurrent to it, that Bill Cunningham New York did not have, and that`s because unlike Cunningham, Jiro has a family. We never meet Jiro`s wife during the course of the movie, but it`s never clear why. Is it because she didn’t want to be interviewed, or more likely, that she has so little to do with his life that she would not be relevant to the movie. We do meet his two sons however – sons that Jiro proudly brags that he convinced not to go to college and instead to follow him into the family business. The younger one left his father`s employ to start his own restaurant, and says that many of his customers tell him they come to his restaurant because he serves the same sushi as Jiro, but in a more relaxed atmosphere. When the older brother, who still works for his father, is asked if he was jealous that his younger brother opened his own restaurant, he replies simply “In Japan, it is expected that the oldest son take over his father`s position”. Oddly, it seems like the older son may have even surpassed Jiro in terms of his skills – when the Michelin judges, who ultimately awarded Jiro their highest grade of three stars, it was the older son, and not Jiro, was the one who served them. And yet, it is Jiro who gets the praise and the rave reviews. It isn’t really Jiro`s fault – he praises his sons, and all the apprentices he employs.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is an interesting and fun documentary. If you ever want to know how to make sushi – and follow the process from the fish market to the table, than this movie will take you through that process in the company of a master. Jiro is happy – and well he should be, as he has made a success of himself, and refuses to compromise his own exacting standards. Yet there is also something sad about this story – and that sticks with me even more than all that delicious looking sushi.

Movie Review: The Campaign

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Movie Review: The Campaign

The Campaign
Directed by: Jay Roach.
Written by: Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy.
Starring: Will Ferrell (Cam Brady), Zach Galifianakis (Marty Huggins), Jason Sudeikis (Mitch), Dylan McDermott (Tim Wattley), Katherine LaNasa (Rose Brady), Sarah Baker (Mitzi Huggins), John Lithgow (Glenn Motch), Dan Aykroyd (Wade Motch), Brian Cox (Raymond Huggins), Karen Maruyama (Mrs. Yao).

I don’t know if the fact that The Campaign is as silly and over the top of a comedy that Will Ferrell has ever made, and is still not that far from the reality of today’s politics in America is a good thing or a bad thing, True, the idea that all the things that happens in this movie would happen in a single Congressional campaign is hard to believe, but if you isolate the individual events, none of them are that far from things that have actually happened. America is a country where people will do anything to win in politics, and do so for no other reason than to simply win. This is a movie about politicians, and yet not a single issue is given any serious time in the movie – that’s because the issues no longer matter. What matters now is money and winning.

Ferrell plays Cam Brady, a 4 term Democratic Congressman from North Carolina. He has his district so sewn up, he runs unopposed every election year. He was once said to be a Vice Presidential candidate, and his wife wants him to be that one day. Not President, where he’d have to do things, but Vice President where he has to do nothing. Brady keeps running every time essentially because he likes being a Congressman. It’s easy, and people like him. His speeches are about nothing – he just hits on buzzwords “America, Jesus, Freedom” and tailors his speeches to whoever he is talking to (apparently every individual group is the backbone on America). The job also comes with perks – like beautiful, blond women who are attracted to him. It’s one of those women who gets Cam into trouble in the first place. And gets the Motch brothers thinking that maybe it’s time to replace Cam in Congress. And they have the money to make that happen.

The person they select is Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), who is running as Republican, and is the son of a powerful man, which of course means he must be smart enough to be a politician. He speaks in an effeminate voice, has a pleasant wife, and two sons, as well as two pugs – which Cam immediately accuses of being Chinese dogs, and hence Communists. He loves him hometown, and is looking forward for his chance to serve it as a Congressman. Does he have any ideas of his own? Not by the evidence presented in this film. He has no chance of winning the election – at least not until the Motch brothers send political adviser Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott) to help him. He then transforms himself into a platitude speaking, mudslinging politician just like Cam Brady. If Brady keeps hitting on the theme of America, Jesus and Freedom, than Marty keeps talking about bringing his broom to Washington because ”It’s a mess”. You can say this no matter if you a Democrat or a Republican – just as long as you are not the incumbent.

The Campaign begins with what would consider a dirty campaign between these two candidates, and simply gets worse and worse as the movie goes along. Yes, the movie does identify the characters as a Democrat and a Republican, but this is mainly a non-partisan movie. It sees both characters as morally bankrupt and beholden to their wealthy backers. The movie does tap into the anger that many people have towards politicians in America right now – hence why Congress keeps setting records for the lowest approval rating in history. The only issue that the movie takes on at all is campaign finance reform, and in particular the controversial Supreme Court Case Citizens United – which has been criticized by some politicians on each side of the aisle. But most people in politics like the new rule – it allows them to raise as much money as possible.

If I’ve made The Campaign sound more serious than it really it, that wasn’t on purpose. If you’re a fan of Ferrell or Galifianakis, and their over the top comic styling’s, you’ll enjoy The Campaign even if you have no interest at all in politics. The two act like idiots – which they are better at than most actors in Hollywood, and they are both hilarious throughout the movie. And yet, there is a kernel of truth underneath all the over the top comedy in The Campaign that makes it slightly more interesting than most comedies of its ilk. I do wish the movie had a more cynical ending than this one does. There is an underlying idealism at the heart of The Campaign that argues that most politicians know the difference between right and wrong, and got into politics for the right reasons and have simply lost their way. I`m not sure if that`s true, and I certainly do not buy in the case of either of these idiots. Yes, someone wins and someone loses the election, but when people are stuck picking between these two idiots, everyone loses. And you should be angry about that – because it’s not that far from the truth.

Movie Review: 360

Movie Review: 360

360
Directed by: Fernando Meirelles.
Written by: Peter Morgan.
Starring: Lucia Siposová (Mirka), Gabriela Marcinkova (Anna), Johannes Krisch (Rocco), Jude Law (Michael Daly), Jamel Debbouze (Algerian Man), Dinara Drukarova (Valentina), Vladimir Vdovichenkov (Sergei), Rachel Weisz (Rose), Juliano Cazarré (Rui), Maria Flor (Laura), Ben Foster (Tyler), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Fran), Anthony Hopkins (Older Man), Mark Ivanir (The Boss).

It takes talent to make what Roger Ebert has dubbed the “hyperlink” movie, where a series of seemingly unconnected characters and events come together through some tenuous connections. In recent years, we’ve seen some interesting (if not entirely successful) versions of this from Paul Haggis (Crash) and Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu (Babel, Amores Perros). But the genre has deep roots – Robert Altman was a master at them (especially in Nashville and Short Cuts), and one of his biggest admirers Paul Thomas Anderson gave us a brilliant one (Magnolia). For the new film 360, director Fernando Meirelles and writer Peter Morgan look back even further – to the work of Arthur Schnitzler who wrote La Ronde, which was turned into a film by the great Max Ophuls in 1950. That film, and the play it was based on, takes place in 1900 Vienna, and every scene is a two hander between two lovers – that eventually breaks off and one of the characters moves onto the next scene, with another lover. That whole movie took place in one city, and eventually comes full circle, so that the prostitute played by Simone Signoret is involved in both the first and last scenes of the movie. The key to making La Ronde work was the simplicity of it structure, and because Ophuls never too it too seriously – he knows its slightly ridiculous, and has fun with the concept of drawing together the classes in his stories of love and lust (and it helped to have the great Anton Walbrook be the acid tongued narrator). In 360 having all the action in one city must have seemed too easy – we are in the era of globalization after all – so this film trots the globe, from various European cities to North America and back again. This could have worked, except for the fact that Meirelles and Morgan take the whole damn thing so seriously that the movie turns out mainly to be a long, dull slog. Individual performances and scenes work, but the end result never comes together.

The movie begins in Vienna, where a young Hungarian woman Mirka (Lucia Sipsova) shows up for an audition with a sleazy pimp to become a prostitute. Her first client is a visiting auto executive (Jude Law), whose wife (Rachel Weisz) is having an affair with a Brazilian photographer (Juliano Cazarre), whose girlfriend Laura (Maria Flor) finds out and decides to go home, and meets a grieving father (Anthony Hopkins) on the play, and then a just released sex offender (Ben Foster) while stranded in an airport. Eventually, this will lead back to Europe, and once again the circle is complete.

I suppose this could have worked, but while Ophuls was able to depict the differences between the classes, and make them all equal, while still making a light, breezy comedy, Meirelles and Morgan insist on making this film so serious that it’s deadly. Jude Law can be a good actor, but he seems lifeless in this role – and Weisz isn’t any better as his wife. Every time I think Weisz is moving forward from her normally overly mannered performances (like with her great work in The Deep Blue Sea earlier this year), she takes a step back. More successful is Hopkins, who is saddled with possibly the most clichéd and unbelievable role, but still finds the pain underneath it all to make it seem real. There is no doubt that Maria Flor is a beauty your eyes are instantly drawn to – I just wish she was given a more believable character to play. Ben Foster is his usual twitchy self as the sex offender, and while we’ve seen him do this before – and better – at least he’s interesting. The movie also adds a series of useless characters who simply get in the way – Mariann Jean Baptiste as a social worker, Jamel Debouzze as a Muslim widow struggling with his sexual feelings, who shows up at random early in the film, and then takes more than an hour before he reappears and his reasons for being in the movie become clear and Mark Ivanir as a clichéd sadistic gangster who is annoying in his every moment.

360 also clutters the beautiful simplicity of Schnitzler’s original structure in La Ronde. The film tries to cram too much in – and often times, the intercutting between stories (especially when the movie is in America) quite simply doesn’t work. What’s odd is how easy it would have been to streamline the movie – to simplify it to a point where it would work.

360 is a major disappointment for both Meirelles and Morgan. Meirelles broke through with his brilliant 2002 film City of God, depicting the slums of Rio de Janerio in his native Brazil. Since then he made a very good John LeCarre adaptation in The Constant Gardener, and mistakenly adapted Jose Saramago’s brilliant novel Blindness, and turned it into the best movie version imaginable of a book that should never have been made into a movie. Each of his films seems to have less of the propulsive energy that made City of God so brilliant, and finally in 360, he has made a film so subdued that you just may fall asleep watching it. As for Morgan, he has written some great screenplays in his career – The Last King of Scotland, The Queen, Frost/Nixon, The Damned United – but like the last film he wrote, the horrible Clint Eastwood film Hereafter, 360 simply proves that perhaps he works better on more narrowly focused films, with fewer characters. When he tries to go big and write one of these “we are all connected” movies, his characters lack focus and depth. There are moments in 360 that work beautifully – especially a moving speech delivered by Hopkins at an AA meeting – but it all adds up to nothing.

Movie Review: Your Sister's Sister

Movie Review: Your Sister's Sister

Your Sister’s Sister
Directed by: Lynn Shelton.
Written by: Lynn Shelton.
Starring: Emily Blunt (Iris), Rosemarie DeWitt (Hannah), Mark Duplass (Jack).

Like her previous film, Humpday (2009), Lynn Shelton`s Your Sister`s Sister takes what could be the premise of a goofy, Hollywood comedy and finds real characters and even some truth in that premise. Humpday was about two male best friends who decide to try and make some money by making gay porn together – taking the Judd Apatow `bromance` premise to its logical conclusion. Your Sister’s Sister is about a depressed man, Jack (Mark Duplass), still reeling from the death of his brother a year prior, who accepts his best friend’s, Iris’ (Emily Blunt) offer of use of her father’s remote cabin for some time to unwind and reflect. It’s obvious from the first scene in the movie that Jack and Iris are in love with each other, but neither can bring themselves to admit it – perhaps because Iris once dated Jack’s brother, or perhaps because they are afraid of losing their best friend. When Jack arrives at the cabin, he discovers to his surprise that it is not empty – Iris’ sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) is there for the same reason as he is – a chance for quiet reflection. She just broke up with her girlfriend of 7 years, and isn’t sure what to do next. After a night of drinking tequila and talking about their problems, they fall into bed together for what is one of the most awkward sex scenes in recent memory. They wake up the next day regretting the previous night – and surprised to find Iris has also shown up at the cabin. And, of course, they decide not to tell her what happened the previous night.

Now this premise could easily have been turned into a modern Hollywood comedy, full of pratfalls and sex jokes. But Shelton and her cast (who are also billed as “creative consultants” apparently because they helped develop their characters and write their dialogue) make these three characters into real, three dimensional characters. They have real chemistry together, and until the end of the movie anyway, I had no problem believing each would act the way they do.

Casting in the movie is crucial, and Shelton chose the right three actors here. Emily Blunt is one of the more lovable actresses around who directors love to cast in romantic comedies. But unlike her work in something like this year’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, here she is forced to play a real character. Yes, we know she should be with Jack, like the heroine of any romantic comedy should be with her best friend, and not the asshole she is dating. But this time, the reasons that she is drawn to Jack, and the reason she is hesitant to take that step, feel genuine. Her interactions with Jack walk that fine line, so he can never really be sure if she is flirting with him, or just being his jokey best friend. Duplass, who proves in this movie (as well as Humpday and this summer’s Safety Not Guaranteed) that he is probably an even better actor than he is a writer-director (and he’s pretty good at that too – see Cyrus and Jeff, Who Lives at Home). In some ways, his characters fit easily into the mold of overgrown man children that is currently en vogue in American comedies, but his characters somehow feel more real – that he actually has a reason for being this way, and not just because the movie requires it of him. He hides his true feelings for Iris less well than she does – he has those puppy dog eyes that sparkle a little when she looks at him. We also know he’ll never make the first move. And then there is Rosemarie DeWitt as Hannah, who is the most secretive of the bunch. If you think that perhaps this is going to be another Chasing Amy movie about a lesbian who falls for a straight guy, you’d be wrong. She has her reasons for doing what she does – which drives the movies less convincing last act. She is quieter than the other two – she sits back and observes more often than she speaks, but she is just as messed up as the other two. It is another wonderful performance by DeWitt, who is very quietly building an impressive resume.

I mentioned I had problems with the last act of the film, and indeed I do. This is a movie at its best when it feels relaxed. These characters feel natural and real, and are more convincing when they are simply talking to each other, and not forced into a plot. The first hour of the film is excellent at that – but when the revelations start pouring out in the film’s final hour, the movie loses some of that relaxed feel – and starts to feel for the first time like a more typical romantic comedy. Still, that first hour is such a joy, and even though the last half hour feels a little forced it still works for the most part. Your Sister’s Sister is worth seeing for the three excellent lead performances – and to see Shelton once again see the truth behind what could have been an easy setup. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Movie Review: 2 Days in Paris

Movie Review: 2 Days in Paris

2 Days in New York
Directed by: Julie Delpy.
Written by: Julie Delpy and Alexia Landeau and Alexandre Nahon.
Starring: Chris Rock (Mingus), Julie Delpy (Marion), Albert Delpy (Jeannot), Alexia Landeau (Rose), Alexandre Nahon (Manu), Kate Burton (Bella), Dylan Baker (Ron), Vincent Gallo (Himself).

I found Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in New York to be a painfully claustrophobic film – and not in a good way. I simply could not wait to get away from the supporting cast of this movie which is full of the most obnoxious and annoying characters I could imagine. The fact that they are all French doesn’t help much. In fact, they are such perfect examples of the most obvious, French stereotypes imaginable, if Delpy herself – and her co-writers - were not French, you could argue that this offensive to French people.

The film is a quasi-sequel to Delpy’s 2007 film 2 Days in Paris – which was better than this film, but not by much – with Delpy once again playing Marion, the neurotic artist, who once again, has to introduce her boyfriend to her family. In 2 Days in Paris, it was New Yorker Adam Goldberg who was the fish out of water in Paris, who meets her eccentric family – and a seeming never ending stream of ex-boyfriends who seem to be on every corner. This time, she is living in New York, raising her young son with her new boyfriend Mingus (Chris Rock), who is also raising his daughter from a previous relationship. She is still a neurotic artist, this time on the eve of her biggest show to date where the biggest item for sale will be her soul. Mingus keeps her grounded – he is a calmer, more stable radio show host. Her family – her lovably eccentric father (played by Delpy’s real life father Albert), her shrill, annoying exhibitionist sister (co-writer Alexia Landeau) and her annoying boyfriend (the other co-writer Alexandre Nahon), who just happens to be another of Marion’s ex-boyfriends come for a visit. And almost immediately, they start driving Mingus crazy. I suppose I was supposed to find Marion’s family amusing – but I just found them annoying and obnoxious. Like Mingus, I just wanted to get away from them as fast as humanly possible. Since much of the movie takes place in their small apartment, I simply felt trapped.

Delpy is obviously inspired by the work of Woody Allen – you can see that in the way she tries to capture the romance of New York in her direction, and in her music choices, and in the way she casts herself as the neurotic lead (and I do not think it’s a coincidence that both Rock and Delpy at times wear Woody-style glasses). But even at his worst, Woody has never made a film this shrill and annoying. This film even makes me appreciate one of Woody’s biggest misfires – To Rome with Love from earlier this summer.

It should be said that Chris Rock is actually quite good in this film. He is the straight man to Delpy’s broader character, but while she doesn’t carry her role very well, he pretty much nails his performance. Perhaps it’s simply because I felt just like Mingus while watching this film – just trying to get the movie to end, but this a real performance by Rock – that goes a little deeper than most of his work, where he simply plays a version of his comic persona.

As much as I hated 2 Days in New York, there is a brilliant scene in it that you should see. After literally selling her soul, Marion has second thoughts and decides she wants it back – and finally tracks down who bought it – Vincent Gallo, playing himself. Their meeting is hilarious from start to finish; mainly because Gallo is having a blast playing on his own, strange image (I am not surprised that he would be interested in buying someone’s soul). But this scene also brings out the best in Delpy as well – this was the one scene in the movie I actually liked her. I would have much rather had seen a 90 minute of this meeting than the rest of the crap that Delpy puts on screen. Most of 2 Days in Paris is awful – but it does have a genius five minute sequence in it.