From Day to Day, a Group of Con Artists Looks for Their Next Job

Evan Rachel Wood in "Kajillionaire" 
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

Upon seeing the trailer for writer-director Miranda July’s comedy-drama, “Kajillionaire,” you would be forgiven for thinking that it looked like one of those overly quirky indie movies that would pop up in theaters throughout the early 2000s.  You see a trailer that presents a couple of minutes of a family acting eccentric and dressing funny, people who we’ve seen several iterations of many times before in movies that mistakes over-quirkiness for cleverness.

Thankfully, that couldn’t be less of the case for July’s movie.  It goes beyond what the trailer suggests it will offer, instead bringing you a movie that’s not only funny, but is also an unexpectedly moving examination on family and a critique on materialism.

In Los Angeles, a young woman named Old Dolio Dyne (Evan Rachel Wood) and her parents, Robert and Theresa (Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger), make a living as con artists, focusing on trivial thefts that allow them to live off of as little money as possible.  When Robert and Theresa decide to bring an outsider, Melanie Whitacre (Gina Rodriguez), in on their latest venture, Old Dolio will find her strained relationship with her parents become even more so.

Wood’s performance brings us one of the most unique characters to movies this year.  Old Dolio might seem like a character who isn’t anything but quirks, but she’s so much more than that.  Wood exhibits Old Dolio’s insecurities and detachment from her parents, showing us an individual who’s looking for someone to love her and not just use her when a scam needs to be accomplished.  Throughout the movie, Wood shows her character’s inner conflict of deciding whether to become a different person and break away from her parents, or remain who she is so she can gain their approval.  Wood punctuates her portrayal with small moments of emotion that provides us with a window early on with what she’s feeling, setting the stage for us to consider who her character will become by the end of the film.

Jenkins and Winger are terrific as parents who are set in their ways and refuse to even think about stopping their dishonest lives as con artists.  We see how stuck they are in their work and how it has caused their incapability, and even hesitancy, to build a healthy relationship with their daughter.  Jenkins and Winger show how their characters’ gears are always turning and how much scamming has become a way of life for them, trying to figure out their latest scheme so that they can live as easy of an existence as possible.  

Rodriguez provides superb work as Melanie constructing a memorable bond with Wood as their characters attempt to understand and connect with each other.  The chemistry that they share opens up avenues that you didn’t think this movie would explore, but it manages this in such a way that has it blend in with what came before, building upon the film’s theme about what it means to value people over things.

July’s screenplay takes some intriguing turns that make this movie something that’s much more than it seems.  What starts out as a fun heist caper soon becomes a story that explores the bond, or lack thereof, between Old Dolio and her parents.  We slowly move into the strain within this family, presenting characters who should have affection for each other, but just use each other to get what they want.  This is shown most poignantly in a scene about halfway through the film, where the family is in the middle of a scam and must pretend to be a family that’s closer to each other than they really are.  The way in which this scene is handled takes an emotional turn as we go from seeing who this family really is, to who they could be, yet refuse to be.

The screenplay also examines the topic of materialism in a way that doesn’t seem cliched.  Instead, it’s explored in a quiet and unexpectedly heartrending way, particularly in scenes where the story evaluates the dynamics between the four main characters, adding considerable depth to them and their situation.

In regard to directing, July is able to establish a touch of an off-kilter tone that introduces us to the lives of these characters, but still manages to ground the movie in a setting that’s very real and captures both the wittiness and emotion that goes into the lifestyle that Old Dolio and her family live.  In July’s pursuit to give us a story about how you don’t need to be rich in order to get by, “Kajillionaire” is a movie that’s rich with its message.

Grade: A

With Her Father’s Help, a Young Woman Investigates Her Marriage

Bill Murray and Rashida Jones in 
"On the Rocks"
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com 

Check out my review on SiftPop.com!

From the Street to the Court, Seven Individuals Fight for a Common Goal

Sacha Baron Cohen (left) and Jeremy Strong 
in "The Trial of the Chicago 7" 
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com 

After years of writing masterful screenplays, Aaron Sorkin made his feature directorial debut in 2017 with the biographical drama, “Molly’s Game,” which he also wrote.  Although it was an instance where he showed more of a flair for writing than directing, he nevertheless displayed sparks of filmmaking potential that could become something great.

He now returns to the director’s chair for another biographical drama, “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which is also written by him.  Here, Sorkin cements his directing talents that pair superbly with his captivating screenplay.

In 1968, during the time of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a riot occurs between a group of protestors and the city police.  For the next several months, the Chicago 7 (Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Alex Sharp, Jeremy Strong, John Carroll Lynch, Noah Robbins, and Daniel Flaherty) are put on trial for the confrontation.

The film has one of the most stunning casts of the year, a cast that’s full of esteemed performers who provide impassioned work to bring this staggering true story to life as their characters traverse the tumultuousness of the trial.  As great as everyone is, the two standouts (not just from the actors portraying the Chicago 7, but the cast as a whole), are Redmayne and Cohen as political activists Tom Hayden and Abbie Hoffman, respectively.  The material that they’re given allows them to display their characters’ intense dedication to their cause, all of which adds to the gravity of the film’s historical moment and presenting what their work means for America’s future.

Outside of the actors portraying the Chicago 7, there also has to be a mentioning of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as political activist Bobby Seale, Frank Langella as Judge Julius Hoffman, and Mark Rylance as the Chicago 7’s lawyer, William Kunstler.  All three of them round out the cast with committed performances that do their part to help bring out the intensity of the courtroom procedures and ensuring that you feel the contentiousness of the battle that’s being fought.

Sorkin’s screenplay takes its intriguing historical era and balances an abundance of characters, allowing us to get to know each of the figures.  With its approach in telling the story of the trial interspersed with scenes in the past that lead up to said trial, we have both timelines get to their boiling points at the same time as we arrive at the part of the riot that led the Chicago 7 to court, and then going to the final days of the trial right after.  Sorkin gives us a deeply detailed view for both of these sections of the story, showing what motivated the Chicago 7 to protest, and then the stress that they face when fighting for their cause in front of a judge and jury.  With the story focusing on one of the defining moments of the ‘60s, Sorkin provides this event with an in-depth and compelling examination.

The editing by Alan Baumgarten (one of the three editors for Sorkin’s “Molly’s Game”) and the direction by Sorkin blends well with the nature of the latter’s dialogue.  Sorkin is able to take his time establishing the characters and setting, but at other times, he increases the pace to make us feel the mounting tension of the scenario’s time-sensitive nature, with the characters going through their dialogue in a tense fashion.  The latter is most noticeable in a scene within the last 20 minutes, where the story transitions back and forth between the turning point in the demonstrations and Hayden being presented evidence that can reveal his role in said turning point.  It calls to mind the pivotal scene between Steve Jobs and John Scully in the second act of Danny Boyle’s 2015 film, “Steve Jobs,” which was also written by Sorkin.  What Boyle, Sorkin, editor Elliot Graham, and composer Daniel Pemberton accomplished there is done to just as powerful of an effect here by Sorkin, Baumgarten, and Pemberton, and is one of the best sequences of the movie.

Back in 1992, when Sorkin wrote the screenplay for “A Few Good Men,” which was adapted from his 1989 stage play, he gave audiences a pulse-pounding legal drama that showed Sorkin’s talent for delivering screenplays where you become absorbed in the dialogue-heavy nature of the scenes.  Whether it be “A Few Good Men,” “The Social Network,” “Molly’s Game,” or “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” Sorkin is able to bring genuine and heated confrontations when it comes to narratives involving legal matter, showing how tense such interactions can become when people are trying to have their side of the story heard.  With this being only the second movie that he has directed, Sorkin does an impressive job in handling the sprawling nature of the story with its many characters, the details it takes into recreating that time period, and delivering as much tension to the scenes of the protest as he brings to the scenes of the trial.  It’s because of all of this that “The Trial of the Chicago 7” gives you the sense of what it must have been like to see history such as this being made. 

Grade: A

A Senior Year with Prom, Graduation, and Existentialism

Katherine Langford and Charlie Plummer 
in "Spontaneous" 
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

The high-school sub-genre of film has done well in emphasizing how the experience that we have in those four years of schooling is full of things that we plan and things that are a spur of the moment.  The latter is the most prevalent because of how so much happens in those four years, that for one thing we anticipate, there are many others that come as a surprise to us.  Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s not.  But, it happens to all of us.

This is something that’s explored in writer-director Brian Duffield’s sci-fi romantic-comedy, “Spontaneous,” a humorous and dark view into what it means to live every moment like it’s your last.

Mara Carlyle (Katherine Langford) is a high-school senior whose life takes an unexpected turn when her classmates begin to spontaneously explode.  Before Mara and her new boyfriend, Dylan Hovemeyer (Charlie Plummer), fall victim to the same fate, they try to figure out why such an occurrence is taking place.

Langford and Plummer have both done their share of dramatic material, with Langford having starred in the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” and Plummer having starred in the films “Lean on Pete” and “All the Money in the World.”  Although they’re able to use their dramatic talents that we’ve seen in the past, they’re also given the chance to exercise their comedic skills as they develop their characters’ relationship and maintain their connection in the middle of all of the uncertainty that this strange event is bringing.  The endearing bond that Mara and Dylan share shows them trying to make the best of a bad situation, never losing their sense of humor and always showing a commitment to each other to get through unexpected difficulties.  And, as a film buff, their occasional movie references were enough to have me rooting for them.

Duffield’s screenplay, which is based on Aaron Starmer’s 2016 novel of the same name, can get a little heavy-handed at some points and doesn’t really have anything groundbreaking to say in terms of the spontaneity of life, but the way in which this topic unfolds is nevertheless a unique, sci-fi/body-horror vision.  The story takes its time in developing Maya and Dylan’s relationship, showing how terrific their characters are for each other and how their similar sense of humor makes for wonderful interactions.  Having us spend a lot of time with them allows for us to experience how much they care for each other, showing a strengthening in their relationship as the scenario at hand gets worse.

This is a story where it might be difficult to find the right balance between the laughs and the shocks of the danger, but as a director, Duffield accomplishes the tricky transitions.  The romantic moments and memorable, comedic banter add some lightness in between the demises of students during the first two thirds of the movie, but we’re then brought into the third act that begins with a scene whose execution couldn’t agree more with Dylan’s assessment earlier in the movie that their situation is like a David Cronenberg movie.  It’s at this point that the gravity of what’s happening to these characters its you hard.

Duffield never fails to create tension because with the whole concept of the movie being to live your life as if you could die at any minute, we even begin to fear that one or both of the main characters could go at any minute.  With cinematography by Aaron Morton, Duffield holds onto shots for quite a length of time in certain spots, so you start to believe that something bad is going to happen.  Sure, you’ll be laughing quite a bit from time to time during other segments, but the anxiety returns quickly and heavily.  But, “Spontaneous” knows that that’s how life unfolds sometimes, and although that can be a difficult aspect of existence with which to live, it’s all about making the most of it.

Grade: B+

It May Be Their House for the Weekend, But They’re Not the Only Ones

From left: Dan Stevens, Sheila Vand, and 
Jeremy Allen White in "The Rental" 
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Some of the boldest entries in the horror genre of the last few years came from well-known actors who wanted to make their filmmaking visions seen, with those examples being Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” and “Us,” and John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place.”  Not only did these films solidify new moviemaking talents, but they’ve become some of the best offerings from the horror genre that we’ve seen in a while.

Now, actor Dave Franco makes his directorial debut with the horror film, “The Rental,” and while this movie doesn’t quite reach the heights of those aforementioned movies, he’s still able to provide a fun update to the cabin-in-the-woods angle for the Airbnb generation.  

The story follows two young couples who rent a seaside home for a weekend getaway, only to find out that they’re being watched.

The four leads, who are played by Dan Stevens, Alison Brie, Sheila Vand, and Jeremy Allen White, aren’t given characters that are exactly three-dimensional, but they still exhibit a fine chemistry that draws us into their friendship, and then their fight for survival.  Their characters might not be too engaging, but their committed performances help in keeping this movie from being a disposable entry in the genre.

While the screenplay by Franco and Joe Swanberg is rather thin, it does well in terms of playing with your expectations a bit, with the film unfolding as more of a relationship drama as secrets are kept and revealed amongst the two couples.  Although there are horror elements that offer some chills during this portion of the movie, they aren’t in your face.  Instead, they take a back seat to the drama between the characters, slowly easing their way forward as the movie reaches its purely horror segment.  By the time we arrive at that part of the story, it never seems jarring because of the story having taken its time to transition between the two tones.  Despite the story not offering much in the way of depth, Franco and Swanberg should be commended for knowing how to build towards something and keeping us invested.

Parts of the narrative seem familiar in several respects, but Franco proves to be someone who’s capable of using the technical aspects of filmmaking to heighten the narrative.  The use of cinematography by Christian Sprenger displays the space of the house in such a way that gives us an idea of not only the vastness of the interior that the characters inhabit, but also the outside, with the giant windows showing the expansive outdoors that further highlight the isolation of the main characters.

The final five minutes of the movie are probably what show Franco’s potential the most.  He builds tension even as the film seems to have wrapped up, heading towards an ending that leaves a disquieting impact.  Aside from that, another plus is that the few jump scares that Franco uses aren’t cheap, but instead evoke some shivers from the viewer.  Despite being new to directing, Franco not only shows that he can craft a good scare, but also proves that he isn’t afraid to show restraint when it’s needed the most.

“The Rental” might not be a top pick when it comes to other recent horror films, but it shows glimmers of promise from Franco as a filmmaker.  And, just like a simple weekend getaway, this movie proves to be diverting enough.

Grade: B