Even During the Apocalypse, It’s Never Too Late to Grow Up

Sunita Mani and John Paul Reynolds in 
"Save Yourselves!"
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

When focusing on films about alien invasions, big-budget special-effects movies like Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” and Roland Emmerich’s “Independence Day” probably come to mind.  While these aren’t the type of stories that one would associate with anything outside of blockbusters, smaller-scale narratives can work just as well when focusing on this section of the sci-fi genre.

Writer-directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson accomplish this with their comedy, “Save Yourselves!”, which is their feature filmmaking debut.  Despite a story in which it might take awhile for you to get involved, this still manages to be a light and entertaining trip through the apocalypse.

Wanting to disconnect from their phones, laptops, and other forms of communication, a Brooklyn couple, Su (Sunita Mani) and Jack (John Paul Reynolds) decides to spend a week at a friend’s house in upstate New York and improve their relationship.  They soon realize that, having disconnected themselves from all media, they’ve missed news about an alien takeover. Once the extraterrestrials reach the house, Su and Jack will have to learn how to fend for themselves.

For much of the movie, Mani and Reynolds are the only two people.  With the time that Su and Jack spend together, Mani and Reynolds uphold a fun chemistry that makes their characters fun to follow.  Su and Jack share a loving connection where, even if the characters themselves aren’t too engaging at first, Mani and Reynolds at least inhabit their roles genuinely enough to get us interested in their characters at the start of the movie.  As the story goes on, their characters examine their insecurities and the problems in their relationship, leading to some memorable interactions between Mani and Reynolds that hold the right balance of humor and drama.  These dialogues that they share soon add some depth to their characters that make them more interesting than they are in the beginning.

The screenplay by Fischer and Wilson may paint the main characters as typical Brooklyn hipsters at the start, but it soon becomes a rather heartwarming story about what it means to have to grow up in a time of crisis.  There’s some witty dialogue here and there to sustain the so-so first half, but as the movie goes on and Su and Jack find themselves having to take on more responsibilities to get through the invasion, the second half of the story invests you more in Su and Jack’s journey and does well in examining its central theme.

As directors, Fischer and Wilson decide to forgo big set pieces, and instead go for more character work and establishing a sci-fi story that’s built on emotion, rather than thrills.  Not that there’s anything wrong with thrills in an alien-invasion story, but for a minimalist movie like this, a story built on characters and dialogue tends to work better.  Fischer and Wilson make this the case for “Save Yourselves!”, showing that a movie about an apocalyptic event can still be explored just as in depth with smaller-scale stories.

Grade: B+

For a Mysterious Corporation, Your Mind is Their Business

Jennifer Jason Leigh (left) and Andrea 
Riseborough in "Possessor" 
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

Although director David Cronenberg has made some heavy dramas, like “A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises,” and “Cosmopolis,” what he’s most known for is his movies that focus on body horror.  With movies like “The Fly,” “Videodrome,” and “Scanners,” he has created movies that pack an intense punch when it comes to his characters undergoing terrifying transformations.  Even his straightforward dramas have touches of body horror in them, given how bloody they can become.

Now, David’s son, Brandon, continues to follow in his father’s footsteps with his second directorial feature, “Possessor,” where he ventures further his own descent into the twisted, sci-fi body-horror for which his father has become so well known.

Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) works for a company that utilizes brain-implant technology to inhabit the bodies of other people and use them to carry out assassinations for the company’s benefit.  When her latest task involves entering the mind of a man named Colin Tate (Christopher  Abbott), the mission, and Tasya, will soon be in jeopardy when Colin’s mind threatens to overtake her own.

Riseborough’s performance is one in which her character shows a compelling display of someone who seems to be in command of her missions, but may be falling victim to her targets.  Although Riseborough isn’t seen much after the first third of the movie once her character inhabits Colin’s body, what we see before is small details of someone who has faced the physical and psychological toll of her profession.  It’s a quiet performance that says a lot of what Tasya has experienced in her line of work.

Just like Riseborough’s work in the movie, Abbott also presents someone who is soon overcome with the dangerous results of the transplant.  It gets to the point where you’re not sure who’s in control of his body, him or Tasya, and this is because he puts on a convincing portrayal of Tasya trying to get used to controlling his body.  Abbott ratchets up the intensity as the film goes on and he starts to fight for his mind, and this offers an intriguing fracturing of his character’s psyche is that keeps the story tightly wound as you watch Colin try to maintain a grasp on his life.  It’s a fascinating dual performance in a sense that we see Abbott play his character, and then act as if someone else is controlling him.  

Jennifer Jason Leigh, who had a starring role in David Cronenberg’s “Existenz,” does much with her supporting role as Tasya’s boss, Girder.  Leigh gives her character a cold, do-what’s-best-for-the-company attitude that’s chilling in how laid back her character seems, despite the danger that these missions can pose for her agents.  She presents Girder in such a way that it always seems like she’s keeping something from us, and this helps make her interactions with Tasya all the more unsettling.

Gabrielle Graham, who only appears in the opening scene, provides a near-wordless performance as a woman whose body Tasya controls on an assignment.  Through just Graham’s facial expressions, she does terrific work in providing an introduction of what it’s like to have a character in this world be controlled by another, and this helps to establish the intensity that you feel throughout the rest of the movie.

Cronenberg’s screenplay takes a relatively simple premise and injects it with something deeper, just as his father does with his sci-fi narratives.  This is one of those stories where we think we might have it figured out, but when we arrive to the final half hour and begin questioning what’s happening, we see that Brandon has the potential to confound and surprise his audiences as much as his father can.  And, once you reach the end, you’ll have to reevaluate what you thought you knew about the main character as you replay scenes in your head and contemplate them from a new angle.

Cronenberg, who made his feature directorial debut in 2012 for the horror film, “Antiviral,” has picked up some of his father’s filmmaking potential to delver a sci-fi horror-thriller that’s both visceral and suspenseful.  Right from the opening scene, he makes us well aware that we’re in for a shocking experience.  He’s able to build a lot of apprehension as we wait for the dam to break in terms of the controlled individuals taking out their targets, and just like his father, Brandon is able to make us squirm at the results of such sequences.  He’s not only able to make us recoil at some of the events, but he’s also capable of constructing a disorienting atmosphere that becomes even more so as he brings us further into the complexities that arise between the melding, and eventual battle of two minds.

Given the intelligence and shocks within “Possessor,” it’s clear that cinema now has two Cronenbergs on whom it can count to provide their signature twisted and thought-provoking stories to the sci-fi and horror genres.

Grade: A

In a Small Town, the Pious and the Sinful Have a Deadly Collision

Tom Holland in "The Devil All the Time" 
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Director Antonio Campos’ psychological-thriller, “The Devil All the Time,” has the promise of a tension-filled ride with its talented cast traversing through an epic, southern crime parable, which is based on the acclaim novel by Donald Ray Pollock, which was published in 2011.  However, the movie hardly reaches the powerful heights that’s promised by its intriguing setup.

The story takes place in 1950 and follows Arvin Russell (Tom Holland), who must protect his loved ones while living in Coal Creek, West Virginia, a rural town that’s plagued by corruption.

While the whole cast has terrific performers, most of them are tasked with playing characters who are one-dimensional.  The only character who has an adequate arc is Holland’s, portraying a young man who must utilize the rules of survival that he was taught as a child and apply them to the dangerous situations in which he finds himself.  Holland brings across Arvin’s rough upbringing in a performance that shows the toughness that he has built up over the years.  This is a role that makes one intrigued in seeing what Holland can do with roles that are more dramatic because he certainly has the talent to find success with such characters.

Robert Pattinson plays the community’s new pastor, a character, like many others in this film, who is frustratingly underwritten.  But, he still makes an impression with his character’s fire-and-brimstone pontificating.  He provides the film with scenes that add some fervor to the narrative, being a perfect example of what it means to make the most out of material that limits your character.  Just like Holland’s performance, the one given by Pattinson is one of the few good things that you’ll remember from this movie.

The rest of the cast includes an array of established actors, such as Riley Keough and Jason Clarke as a murderous wife and husband; Eliza Scanlen as Arvin’s adopted sister, and Sebastian Stan as an amoral sheriff.  While all of these performers do fine work, the material that they’re given isn’t enough make these characters engaging, and you end up not feeling interested in any of their arcs.

The screenplay by Antonio and Paulo Campos takes what could have been a sprawling mosaic of mid-twentieth century crime, but just uses the barest levels of what could have been done.  The many characters that are introduced at the start of the film make you hopeful for some memorable interactions amongst them, but hardly any come to pass.  There is so much potential here, but the characters aren’t explored as in-depth as they should be.

Besides the mostly lazy work with the characters, the movie doesn’t have anything interesting to say about the theme of deceit when shedding light on the local parish and police force, those to whom we turn for guidance against the evils of the world.  Instead, the story just scraps along on the bare minimum of this subject.  It’s an aspect such as this that has you wonder why the movie needed to be over two hours if it wasn’t going to explore its subjects in greater, more complex detail.  All of that time goes wasted on a narrative that doesn’t take full advantage of the material with which it could work.

What’s worse is that this movie feels like it wants to say something, but just ends up being a movie that thinks it’s saying more than it is.  The unnecessary narration, which is done by the novel’s author, spells out what you’re already thinking, as if it’s trying to be deep, but also hold your hand in stating the obvious.  You want to hear these characters convey their emotions themselves, not hear someone else speak for them.  One of the biggest surprises of this movie is why the author would agree to do this.

Because of how uninteresting most of the characters are, Campos isn’t able to make us feel any of the apprehension that befalls the characters as they get into life-threatening situations.  All of the ingredients are there for a gut-punch of a thriller, but the shortcomings of his and Paulo’s screenplay limits what the former could have done as a filmmaker.  With that, none of the big events of the film have any impact, and each scene pretty much just ends with a shrug of your shoulders. 

Just like the characters in “The Devil All the Time,” you may find yourself praying at certain points, and those prayers go towards the hope that this movie will get better.  Unfortunately, those prayers go unanswered.

Grade: C

For a Secret Agent, Saving the World Requires Time

John David Washington and Robert Pattinson 
in "Tenet" 
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

Writer-director Christopher Nolan has developed a reputation for taking a subject and creating a narrative that wraps itself around your brain, loosening and tightening as you try to make sense, then succeed in making sense, then try to make sense again of what he brings to a story.  He has done this with memories for “Memento,” magic for “The Prestige,” dreams for “Inception,” and space for “Interstellar.”  He’s a filmmaker for whom there never seems to be a shortage of fascinating ways to approach a concept.

Now, Nolan shifts his focus to time travel for his action-thriller, “Tenet.”  It’s a movie with huge ideas and a grand scale for its presentation.  With that, this is very much a Nolan movie, for better or worse.

The story follows a secret agent (John David Washington) who’s assigned a task to manipulate time and protect the world from irreparable destruction.

Washington, who gave an impressive breakout performance two years ago in Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,” isn’t provided with much of a chance to play an intriguing character.  He does what he can to make his role as engaging as possible, throwing bits of wit in between his character’s more serious scenes.  However, this is a role without much characterization, which shouldn’t be the case with a big-budget, thought-provoking epic.

The supporting cast fairs a little better.  While Robert Pattinson doesn’t get much to do as the handler for Washington’s character, you can tell that there’s some groundwork for great chemistry between him and Washington, if only their characters were more dimensional.  While Dimple Kapadia and Michael Caine exhibit engaging screen presences as an arms trafficker and a British Intelligence officer respectively, most of their dialogue just serves as exposition.  Then again, a great deal of the film’s dialogue is exposition.

However, two performers that are given more with which to work are Elizabeth Debicki as a mysterious art appraiser, and Kenneth Branagh as her controlling husband, a Russian oligarch who communicates with the future.  Debicki and Branagh’s characters are the only ones who come close to having anything dramatic in their arcs, and their scenes together exhibit a palpable tension as we get to know their shared history, offering a break from the relative coldness of the rest of the film.  Debicki’s character shows strength and a cunning persona as she helps the main character on his mission, and Branagh is superb as he goes between ferocious and eerily calm as the main villain.

An issue in some of Nolan’s latest films is that he’s so concerned with blowing our minds with his technical proficiency and intricate plots, that he forgets to write interesting characters, pretty much making them secondary to everything else.  You learn almost nothing about most of the characters, and many of them are just there to move the story along.

In typical Nolan fashion, his screenplay includes elaborate narratives.  Time travel is something that we’ve seen countless times in movies, but he finds an innovative way in which to present this subject, just like with other topics that he’s explored in his previous movies.  Similar to the complexity of some of his other films, the subject can seem convoluted at first, but as the story goes on, the pieces start to fall into place, and the story becomes more comprehensible.  However, this is a movie that will benefit from a second, and maybe even a third viewing in order to build a deeper understanding of it. 

However, gaining a better understanding of the film isn’t the only reason for a second viewing.  Although it’s always fun to try to unravel one of Nolan’s complex plots, it doesn’t help when the sound mixing isn’t the best.  Half of the time, you can barely hear what the characters are saying because of the loudness of the background noise and music (an otherwise pulse-pounding score from Ludwig Göransson), and you sometimes have to strain yourself as you attempt to hear the dialogue.  This problem with sound mixing was also an issue with Nolan’s last two films, “Dunkirk” and “Interstellar.”  Even though the time-travel logic becomes easier to grasp as the film goes on, you still might miss some of the finer details because of some of the dialogue being drowned out.  This is one of those movies where, if you would like to see it on a big screen, the action sequences make it worth it.  Otherwise, if you have a big-enough television and sound system at home, you might as well wait for a home release when you can watch this movie with the captions turned on. 

Despite the film’s issues, a highlight is obviously the action.  Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, who collaborated with Nolan for “Dunkirk” and “Interstellar,” terrifically captures the film’s thrilling set-pieces, such as a fight sequence at Oslo Airport and a vehicular chase in the Estonian city of Tallinn.  What makes these sequences as superb as they are is the use of inverted entropy, which shows people and objects moving backwards through time, amongst people and objects that are moving forwards through time.  Despite the movie’s narrative shortcomings, there isn’t any denying the inventiveness of the film’s big action scenes.

Although “Tenet” is one of Nolan’s lesser movies, there’s still his usual ambition on display.  However, it’s also a film that shows how if Nolan doesn’t fix the common issues in his movies soon, his career will start going backwards, instead of continuing forwards.

Grade: C+

In Charlie Kaufman’s Latest, a Road Trip Becomes a Mind Trip

From left: Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, 
Toni Collette, and David Thewlis in 
"I'm Thinking of Ending Things" 
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

Check out my review on SiftPop.com!