A Relationship Built on Love, Wisdom, and Understanding

Rooney Mara (left) and Cate Blanchett in "Carol"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Although there have been some significant steps forward in society’s acceptance of same-sex relationships, the time leading up to it held many difficulties for those in the LGBT community.  Over the past decades, we’ve had films that chronicled the struggles they faced in trying to express themselves, despite them being around people who wouldn’t accept them.  It’s difficult to think “Brokeback Mountain,” one of the most successful films to handle this topic, came out 10 years ago; and after all of these years, there are still stories to be told about same-sex couples who work to transcend the societal norms that try to quell them.

Thanks to director Todd Haynes, we now have the period drama, “Carol,” which focuses on a bond established between two women in 1952.  With two glowing performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, a rich narrative, polished direction, and artful camerawork, Haynes provides a bittersweet love story you won’t soon forget.

Carol Aird (Blanchett) is a socialite who’s in the middle of a divorce with her husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler).  One day, when Christmas shopping in a Manhattan department store, Carol meets a shopgirl and aspiring photographer named Therese Belivet (Mara), and the two soon establish a bond.  Despite having to keep their relationship a secret, the two discover a connection between them that they never would have expected to happen.

Cate Blanchett, one of the most luminous actresses working today, offers a performance that makes you feel like you’re watching a classic Hollywood actress on the screen.  As a woman fighting for joint custody of her daughter and trying to keep her relationship hidden, Blanchett beautifully displays the emotions that come with the difficulties her character faces, while also showing how alive she feels whenever she can be herself around Therese.  The friendliness, warmth, and love with which Carol radiates when she’s with Therese is an absolute pleasure to watch.  Carol is an individual who has an abundance of wisdom she’s willing to part onto Therese in order to help her confidence grow, and Blanchett brings across her character as someone who has experienced much in her life and wants to guide someone younger into defying what society expects her to be.

Rooney Mara offers the film its coming-of-age angle as a young woman who begins to realize who she is once beginning her relationship with Carol.  Her character starts off as someone who doesn’t quite know where she fits in, and then begins to explore the person she is when she’s with Carol.  When we first meet her, Mara draws us in with her rather reserved personality, but then we’re delighted once she begins to open up to Carol and transition into the person she’s meant to be.

The screenplay by Phyllis Nagy, which is based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel, “The Price of Salt,” offers a richly layered look at how difficult it was for a same-sex couple to live as their true selves during the time period that’s depicted.  We are shown the risks they have to take in order to keep their relationship hidden, but the immense sense of freedom we see them experience when they’re together allows the viewer to see the deep love Carol and Therese have for each other.  Besides providing us with scenes between Carol and Therese, we are also given enough scenes with the two of them on their own as they deal with their separate problems that are keeping them from living the lives they want.    

Director Haynes has brought an important love story that, despite taking place in the ‘50s, still has considerable relevance for today.  With the help of cinematographer Edward Lachman, Haynes depicts Carol and Therese’s relationship by framing them in intimate close-ups and within frames in the set designs, switching between their sense of freedom when they’re together and the limitations of what their society deems as appropriate.  

Haynes offers audiences a strong example of the kind of movie you can make when you have the right blend of acting, direction, story, and shot composition, making “Carol” a film you must see for its beauty, as well as its importance.

Final grade: A

A Journey for Revenge Through the Deadly Wilderness

Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Revenant"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

A talented filmmaker should have the abilities to transport audiences into the world within their movie.  If the director has the skill to capture the details of a certain place on camera, the filmmaker will make it simple for the audience to become heavily invested in what’s happening within this place.

Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu achieves this as he brings us one of the most visceral moviegoing experiences in 2015 cinema for his revenge drama, “The Revenant.”  With an intense central performance, thrilling direction, a stunning story inspired by true events, and masterful cinematography, audiences are given a film that throws them into cold and life-threatening terrains as they follow the main character on his quest for vengeance.

In the 1820s, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a handful of his fellow hunters escape a raid by Native Americans.  While venturing through the woods, Glass is separated from his group and is mauled and nearly killed by a bear.  His crew believes he is near death, and carrying him slows their trip.  Their captain, Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) asks for Hugh’s son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), and two other hunters, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and Jim Bridger (Will Poulter), to stay with him until he passes, while the others go on to return home.  Believing that it’s dangerous to wait around and possibly be attacked, John decides to try and kill Hugh, and manages to murder Hawk in the process when he tries to defend his father.  After being left for dead, Hugh eventually begins to make his way through the harsh conditions of the wild as he tracks down those who wronged him.

Although Leonardo DiCaprio’s role doesn’t really go beyond him trying to survive in the wilderness, it still allows him to show his near-unparalleled power as an actor.  Even with minimal dialogue throughout the film, DiCaprio manages to draw us with his acting that’s as raw as the world he must face.  We’ve seen him portray figures such as Jordan Belfort, Jay Gatsby, J. Edgar Hoover, and Howard Hughes, but this is something completely different.  This is DiCaprio in an environment in which we have never seen him act, something that brings us uncomfortably close to the mercilessness of the environment his character finds himself in, and DiCaprio shows he is an actor will do whatever he can to deliver the truest performance the story deserves.

Tom Hardy offers a stellar supporting performance as a man who, just like Glass, will do whatever he can to survive, but by much more abominable means.  As a savage hunter, John is a character who is as loathsome as he is cowardly, and Hardy provides him with as much grit as DiCaprio in bringing to life what the experience of the wild has done to him.

Emmanuel Lubezki offers some of the most stunning cinematography of his career, and this is an individual who has already displayed tremendous camerawork for films like “Birdman,” “Gravity,” and “Children of Men.”  Just as he did in those films, he employs an extensive use of long takes in order to have the audience experience the true lengthiness of certain portions of Hugh’s journey.  Lubezki also employs gorgeous imagery of the frontier landscapes to provide a sense of scale and grandness for Hugh’s travels.

One of the most brutal sequences in the film is, of course, the bear attack on Hugh.  Filmed in one long take, the camera never turns away from the brutal mauling.  You see everything that happens to Hugh and are faced with the whole grueling duration of the attack.  This scene establishes that Lubezki and Iñárritu won’t shy away from showing whatever dangers may come throughout the rest of the film.

The screenplay by Iñárritu and Mark L. Smith, which is partly based on Michael Punke’s 2002 work “The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge,” is a rather simple story for the most part, with a majority of the narrative focusing on Glass attempting to seek revenge.  But, near the end, it offers something a little more philosophical when it brings the concept of revenge into question, an argument that appears in the last five minutes of the film and offers the viewer something to ponder as they leave the treacherous landscapes. 

As a whole, the narrative offers a few different story threads that follow Hugh, a tribe of Native Americans, and a group of French frontiersmen, all of whom interlock with each other.  This allows the film to have more going on then simply just Hugh trying to get back home, and offers the story a little more dramatic heft.

Iñárritu is merciless when it comes to placing the audience in the windswept, snow-covered terrains he depicts.  Through the imagery of the environment that’s shown, he explores the themes of revenge and redemption and raises the question if revenge is something that should be acted upon as a natural instinct within us, or if it’s something that will occur in time by forces beyond our control.  This film is a truly immersive experience, an artful adventure that must be experienced on the big screen in order to feel it’s unyielding strength.  “The Revenant” will take viewers on a difficult odyssey, but it’s one to go on if you want to feel the tight grip cinema can have on you. 

Final grade: A-

A Screenwriter and More Take on Hollywood’s Witch Hunt

Helen Mirren and Bryan Cranston in "Trumbo"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

With the film industry being a majestic entity in show business, it’s always compelling to see films that tell stories about what goes on in those studio lots.  Some examples include 2012’s “Hitchcock,” 2011’s “The Artist,” and 1994’s “Ed Wood.”  There is an abundance of history that has built up in a century of the art and business of moviemaking, and the movies that depict that history are often as educational as they are entertaining.

The latest film that deals with a piece of Hollywood’s history is director Jay Roach’s “Trumbo,” which tells the story of famed screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo.  Although the movie is an averagely made biopic for the most part, the film is saved by its performances and details of the blacklisting that occurred in Hollywood in the mid-twentieth century.

Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) is one of the most respected screenwriters in Hollywood.  But, after the United States enters the Cold War with the Soviet Union, Trumbo’s involvement in the Community Party of the U.S.A. eventually leads him to being blacklisted.  With some cunning and help from other blacklisted screenwriters, Trumbo will do what he can to write more screenplays and support his family.

Being one of the finest actors working today, Bryan Cranston’s performance is the main reason to give this movie a watch.  He exhibits the determination and work ethic Trumbo needed to stand up to Hollywood’s blacklisting.  As the film progresses, Cranston displays the stress and agitation that came with trying to maintain a living by having to do the work he loves in secret, and he ultimately shows what it means to stick to your convictions, even when many threaten to turn against you.

Not many of the supporting performances particularly stand out, but I have to give praise to Helen Mirren’s fun portrayal of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper and John Goodman’s latest comical turn as King Brothers Productions co-founder, Frank King.

The screenplay by John McNamara, which is based on Bruce Cook’s biography, “Dalton Trumbo,” offers an entertaining look at the effects of McCarthyism in Hollywood.  Throughout the film, we are given plenty of details that invest us in this fascinating, yet troubling period of Hollywood’s history.  McNamara shows the harm inflicted by the crackdown imposed by the film industry, which allows the story to display how difficult it was for people in show business to choose between defending their friends and complying with the tight grip of Hollywood.

Given how interesting the subject matter is, there should have been a little more directorial flair from Jay Roach.  He does a serviceable job with the material, but his direction is rather by-the-numbers, and a big-screen drama such as this should have some stylistic direction to compliment the intrigue of the true story that’s depicted.

Although “Trumbo” should have had a better treatment from its director, the performances and story are enough to compensate for this fault, and you’ll learn quite a bit as you watch Trumbo’s genius at work. 

Final grade: B