laraemeadows Blog

Under discussion:

The Visitor  (2007)

The Visitor strings together unlikely events in the lives of a professor and his visitors.  Remarkably sincere and touching, the unimaginable events feel natural. 

Awkward Connecticut economics professor Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) has essentially checked out from his job, his personality and his life.  Walter is forced by circumstance to return to his abandoned New York City apartment.   When he returns he meets Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira), who have taken up unauthorized residence in his apartment.  Tarek and Zainab teach Walter to live again, to come out of his shell and remind him how unfair life can be.

Writer and director Thomas McCarthy wrote all of the characters in The Visitor with almost contradictory personality attributes which gives them each a complex humanity.

McCarthy wrote Walter Vale painfully dull and bumbling but it was Richard Jenkins who also makes Walter charming and heart breaking.  In nearly every setting, Jenkins both makes the audience scrunch their faces at Walter’s social inadequacies while simultaneously bringing out our Florence Nightingale instincts.  As Walter changes in the course The Visitor, Jenkins keeps the essential qualities of Walter but changes him in surprising ways.

The supporting cast isn’t any less remarkable in The Visitor.  There is a master of life, a vision of unabashed sadness and an embodiment of sensual motherly warmth.  Haaz Sleiman, who plays Tarek, is (damn foxy) full of life as Tarek.  His esprit fills Tarek, the audience, the other characters and actors with such vitality.  Danai Jekesai Guria plays Zainab, Tarek’s girlfriend.  So much of Zainab is forlorn despondent dejection.  Rich with beautiful hardness and unnaturally attractive pain, Danai Jekesai Guria made Zainab so hard to watch but impossible to pull your eyes away from.  Hiam Abbass plays Mouna, Tarek’s mother.  Her fear is palpable but she never loses her intangible sensuality. 

The most remarkable part of The Visitor is the way it organically shows the way life can change un-expectantly, unfairly and without warning and does it with real, raw emotion.  Just when you think you’ve figured out what the movie is about, you slapped with a new reality.  It is frightening, timely and angering.  Even the ending, which is not the typical movie ending, is emotive in a subtle and realistic way.  I was not overwhelmed or underwhelmed by the movie, I was perfectly whelmed; a task indeed. 

The pacing is the one complaint I have with The Visitor.  The editing could have been much better.  There are beautiful scenes sometimes drawn out to boredom.  Scenes that were the actors’ timing is slightly off are only highlighted by the shoddy editing.  The Visitor is an artsy movie but Tom McArdle checked out completely in a few of the scenes.

Slow bits aside, The Visitor is a rewarding film with rich characters, beautiful acting and complexities that might make those people who are quick to tears, cry. 

Under discussion:

Iron Man  (2008)

A genesis story, Iron Man answers the question, “Where did Iron Man come from?”  Laughter dots the super hero backdrop that is visually fun to watch but lacks the lift off to be a classic super hero movie. 

Like the wise one says, “necessity is the mother of invention” and Tony Stark’s mother birthed the crude chrysalis of Iron Man in a cave in Afghanistan.  While demonstrating the Jericho Missile, spoiled, womanizing, arrogant weapons manufacturer and brilliant engineer Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. ) is kidnapped by the Ten Rings terrorist group led by Raza (Faran Tahir).  He is seriously injured during the attack.  They hold him captive with a kidnapped doctor, Yinsen (Shaun Toub), who saves him from further death by attaching a device to his chest.  Yisen and Tony work together to escape alive.  Instead of recreating the missile for the terrorists, Tony develops the beginnings of Iron Man, emotionally and mechanically. 

Iron Man is studded with easily recognizable names camping it up for the story.  Gwyneth Paltrow plays Tony Stark’s assistant Pepper Potts.  She runs around in four inch heels, maternally tending to Tony’s needs.  Her dialogue is fun but a little grating at times because she is a deep as a teaspoon.  Terrence Howard plays Jim Rhodes, Tony’s friend in the Air Force.  He puffs his chest in ways that would make a Marine commercial blush. 

Iron Man isn’t a huge modernized Rock-em Sock-em Robots revision, nor is it a strict superhero movie.  It deals with the very beginning of the Iron Man legacy, so it is more Tony’s personal development story.  He begins as a self absorbed, uncaring, skirt chasing billionaire dilettante with no regard for the consequences of how his money is made.  By the end he is a self absorbed, skirt chasing billionaire dilettante who cares about the people around him, where his money comes from and what people do with his weapons.

There is no shortage of scenes meant to make you laugh that add nearly nothing to the plot of Iron Man, including one with stripper flight attendants.  The scenes meant to evoke laughter sometimes force the audience into an uncomfortable giggle, like a chuckle one might give their unfunny uncle.   It isn’t all middle aged relatives; some of the laughter was well earned.  His machines are fun, his mistakes are entertaining and his arrogance earned more than a few smiles.

The scenes where Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man are exhilarating.  I found myself clapping for flame throwers; how often do you get to do that in real life?  I was fond especially of the learning scenes where Tony was trying to perfect Iron Man’s suit.

The computer generation of the suit is flawless.  I did not have to set aside belief because the light was wrong or the shine was too perfect.  The only problem I had with the Iron Man suit was the inside of the mask, which seems like it is the size of a space suit when the camera looks in it at Tony.  If one was to judge the size of the entire suit as it relates to the space in the mask, one would think it was designed for a couples naked high-altitude romp. 

I found Iron Man enjoyable but, unfortunately, my socks remained firmly on my feet.   I couldn’t really escape into it but I didn’t mind watching it either.