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Children of Men
– Writer-director Alfonso Cuarón’s incredibly bleak peek into
the very near future is a huge success on both an emotional and
technical level, and the only picture of the year to hold a
candle to Babel (coincidental, since both film were made
by Mexicans, and P.D. James's Men novel was co-adapted by
Timothy J. Sexton – a translator for Ińárritu’s
Amores
Perros). The film is
set in 2027, and the human race has been unable to procreate for
nearly two decades. When an apathetic former revolutionary
(Clive Owen) is contacted by his still-radical ex-wife (Julianne
Moore) to use his government contacts in order to smuggle an
illegal “fugee” (Claire-Hope Ashitey) into something called the
Human Project. Why? Because the young woman is about to have a
baby.
The story is a brilliant
blend of Brian K. Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man, Pink Floyd’s Animals,
and a bit of both The Wizard of Oz and A.I.,
and even those who don’t dig the dreary plot will suffer from jaw-in-lapitits
over the film’s choreography and especially Emmanuel Lubezski’s beyond-dazzling
cinematography. There are a couple of set pieces that go on for over five
minutes with no edits – something you might not notice because of the complete
insanity taking place (gunplay, explosions, death, etc). Even better, in this
season where filmmakers insist of dragging 100-minute stories into 150-minute
epics, Men graciously unravels its story in – wait for it – 100 minutes.
PSB says 10
Notes on a Scandal – What begins
as a “ripped from the headlines” story of a working class North London school
where the new art teacher (Cate Blanchett) has an affair with a 15-year-old
student (Andrew Simpson) slowly becomes a simmering melodrama when the dalliance
is discovered by the co-worker who has recently taken her on as a friend (Judi
Dench). At first, we assume Barbara’s fascination with Sheba is rooted in
merciless curiosity – she appears to look down on everyone and everything in the
world – but eventually we learn she has ulterior motives, which I won’t discuss
here aside from saying the story is almost brutally anti-gay.
That story, adapted by
Closer’s Patrick Marber, was based on Zoë Heller’s
novel What Was She Thinking? (you may remember her as a screenwriter from
1991’s sexually-charged Twenty-One with Patsy Kensit). It’s the kind of
dark, upsetting anti-Christmas programming we should expect to see in theatres
this time of year for people who become visibly nauseous at the idea of
something as sickly sweet as The Holiday. If
it wasn’t for a pair of crack performances from the two leads (how many
Supporting Actress nominations can Cate get this year?), Scandal would be
another run-of-the-mill take of how the seemingly perfect lily-white suburbs
aren’t so perfect after all. PSB says 7
The Dead Girl –
Actor-turned-filmmaker Karen Moncrieff knocked the wind out of my sails with
Blue
Car, her 2002 debut
about a teenager who transforms a troubled home life into an uncanny ability to
write poetry. After working on episodes of Six Feet Under and the
woefully short-lived American version of Touching Evil, Moncrieff returns
with an even more impressive feature about a young woman who, as the title
suggests, isn’t quite as lucky at escaping the dark elements of her existence.
The titular prostitute is
played by Brittany Murphy, though we mostly view her as a corpse (it’s her best
performance ever!) because Moncrieff unfurls the tale in a series of
vignettes that show the impact her death has on people she’s never spoken to or
even met. Like, for example, the person who discovers the body (Toni Collette)
or the morgue worker who is forced to re-open some upsetting familial wounds. A
very unconventional way to tell a story we’ve seen about a million times, and
for that (along with the lean 94-minute running time), I am thankful. Keep an
eye on Moncrieff – she’s the real deal. PSB says 8 |
