If you are interested in growing up Jewish in Baltimore in 1954, you’ll love Liberty Heights. But seriously, this is an excellent movie, and not a nostalgia piece. Apparently Barry Levinson decided to write the script and direct the movie after he read what he thought was an anti-Semitic review of one of his earlier movies. The reviewer assumed that because a character was a doctor and called home all the time that he was Jewish. Levinson set out to show that things aren’t and weren’t that simple, and he chose his home town of Baltimore and the big year of change, 1954, to show the awkwardness, excitement, and maturity that can come from dealing with “the other.” So Levinson follows in realistic detail a 50s family sorting out its issues. Ben (Ben Foster) strikes up an intense friendship with the one and only black girl in his newly integrated school (Sylvia played by singer Rebekah Johnson). Her dad, a prominent doctor from a long line of educated blacks, contrasts with Ben’s father (Joe Mantegna) whose burlesque club earnings are supplemented with numbers money. Ben’s brother, Van (Adrian Brody) falls head over heals for a Gentile princess (cover girl Carolyn Murphy) who already has a boyfriend of sorts (Trey; model Justin Chambers), and is much more screwed up than Van is prepared to deal with. Oddly, by “showing some serious balls” in getting Trey off a drunk-driving charge, Van earns Trey’s friendship across class and religious boundaries.
The film pays wonderful attention to detail. Three hundred period cars flood the scenes, not just for nostalgia and not just because they look beautiful, but because Levinson shows the auto as an element of physical mobility that brings different people together to understand, or not understand, their differences. At the same time, the attention to authenticity means 4,000 extras hired, Pennsylvania Avenue redesigned and lighted to 1950s splendor, and 498 black and 2 white fans screaming at an early James Brown concert. A winner.
I liked Possession. But maybe it helps if you are an English literature major. Roland (the rugged, good-looking Aaron Eckhart) is trying to get a lectureship in English literature through his work on a secondary Victorian poet who wrote glowing romantic poetry to his wife. But two love letters Roland finds in an old book lead him to team up with a feminist literature professor (Gyneth Paltrow) to find out the truth. As the illicit romance from 1859 slowly comes to light, Roland and professor Maud have their hesitant modern version of falling in love.
Although the movie is based on A. S. Byatt’s excellent novel, the focus shifts from the novel’s criticism of petty academics to an investigation of romance, old and modern. The acting is solid. The pale and angular Gwyneth is well cast as the icy professor; Aaron looks the 5-o’clock- shadow grad student. Jeremy North, a veteran of period pieces, has a nice twinkle in his eye as a passionate poet. And Jennifer Ehle is wonderful as the poet who links up with North’s character. So what if this film doesn’t break any new ground—it is a finely crafted, enjoyable romance/mystery.
Ghost World—The story of a sort-of-punk 18-year old girl and her cynical yet confused view of the world. It starts off somewhat amusing but, when she graduates from high school, her basic immaturity starts to show through her veneer of sophisticated cynicism. She fights with her best girl friend (who is growing up), alienates herself from her gentle father, and generally causes some kind of psychological harm wherever she goes. A surprisingly good movie but not pleasant to watch. Daniel Clowes (writer) and Terry Zwigoff (director) present one slice of teenage life, and it sticks with you weeks later.
The Pledge (2001) is directed by the gloomy Sean Penn and stars Jack Nicholson as good as he gets. This movie will put you off because the subject matter seems to be about a serial killer of little girls. But it is more a character study of a retiring detective with mixed motives. It’s based on a 1958 novel by a Swiss detective writer, and it has the quality of a literary effort. As Jerry Black is retiring from the service, he goes on one last case, showing that he needs his work, not just fishing, to sustain himself. In the process, he promises the mother that he will catch the killer of you little girl. It is tough to know how deeply he means it at the time, but he comes to hold his pledge dearly. He says to the jaded police chief, “You’re old enough to know when a promise meant something!” While the cops close the case thinking they’ve got the guy, Jerry feels rightly that they haven’t, and a kid killer is on the loose. He finds a pattern of killings, but the cops are unimpressed. He’s on his own. Slowly and methodically, like fishing, he buys an old gas station in the middle of the perpetrator’s territory and waits and watches. As all the clues come together, he has to make a decision about endangering his new-found happy home, and he makes the wrong decision. Well, he makes a controversial decision, which most people sitting in the comfort of their living rooms would say is wrong. The movie ends with an ironic twist of fate which makes his decision seem really, really wrong.
The Director, Sean Penn, did a good job of creating a subtle, ever-present background of evil. Early in the film it is at the forefront: The mother says something like she cannot believe there are such evil people out there, and Jerry says in a convincing tone: “There are!” Then scenes show some of the despair and grief of people left behind, and then you see some everyday scenes and you don’t wonder what is out there, you k-n-o-w what is out there, just going about his everyday business--evil.
I like the complex motives of the protagonist, superbly played by Jack Nicholson. He needs the case as much as it needs him. He wants to retire and fish, but he chooses to do so in the middle of where he might run into the killer. He goes to a psychologist to have her interpret a drawing, but she guess rightly, “You’ve come for help for yourself, haven’t you?” Most of all though, I like The Pledge because it examines the risks of doing good. Part of the risks are your own motives—how complex they can be. Part of the risk is that other people just do their jobs (like the police force) and when you go above and beyond the call, you stand out. As Jerry’s replacement on the force said, “He’s become a drunk and a joke—a joke.” But more importantly, you are out on a limb in a way I’d never thought of before: Getting tunnel vision on doing good means that you don’t see the larger picture.
People will object to this movie because of its gruesome subject matter, but as I think about the movie more, I object to the surprise ending. It proves Jerry was wrong. But that is the easy way out. What if we had not had the surprise ending and Jerry’s plan to catch the killer worked flawlessly? Ah, then what would we say about the risk he took with his family? Now that would have made an even better movie. A powerful movie.
Richard III is a 1995 adaptation of a modern stage adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play. Set in 1930s England, it chronicles the rise to power of an evil man. Unlike, say, Macbeth who is a man who happens to have severe failings, Richard is a mono-dimensional personification of evil. So why, some Shakespeare critics ask, is this rather soap-operaish play the second most produced (after Hamlet)? My guess is because we have all encountered or observed people acting in an evil way, so it does not surprise us—in fact, fascinates us—to see someone so overtly villanous. The production makes the move to the 1930s very well, and it deseved the two Oscar nominations for costumes and for set design. Music is used to good effect, with the wonderful Stacey Kent and orchestra doing the best Shakespeare song you’ll ever hear (the lyrics are actually by Shakespeare’s rival Christopher Marlowe). And as the happy-go-lucky music opens the movie, the plotting of murders is already underway. The cast is stellar, but the direction is uneven, making a few of the speeches seem more like set pieces than part of an ensemble effort to entertain and enlighten.
Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, and Mary Steenburgen, is a gripping movie. Very, very few films will I watch a second time, even with years intervening. Although I do not have any particular attachment to the AIDS issue, this movie made me entirely sympathetic by emphasizing an angle we can all identify with—injustice.