Greener Mountains

Director:
Lee Shallat Chemel

In Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Legend of 1900, after an abandoned baby is left aboard a great ocean liner, he spends the rest of his life at sea. And although he’s tempted by love, as an adult, “1900” (Tim Roth) finds himself unable to leave the vessel that has become his home. While 1900’s oceanic landscape endlessly changed as the ship moved from port to port and his circumstances were played for melancholic fairy tale like whimsy in Tornatore’s period piece, in four-time Emmy nominated director Lee Shallat Chemel’s feature film debut Greener Mountains, we’re offered a similar set-up but a decidedly sunnier approach.

In Chemel’s contemporary, warmly inviting film, although the equally abandoned child JP Barton (Chris Heuisler) has also lived in the same location where he was discovered and for him the view never changes, after only a few introductory, gorgeously photographed shots, we realize that compared to 1900, he’s living in a far more idyllic situation. Set amidst the breathtakingly picturesque Vermont setting of Barton’s Family Resort, we instantly recall Chemel’s other television credits working in other welcoming communities such as Gilmore Girls’ Stars Hollow and Northern Exposure’s Cicely, Alaska. After a cinematographic dream of a credit sequence in which any single frame could be pulled out and turned into a postcard, we’re introduced to the now college-aged JP who nearly runs the resort alongside his best friend, caretaker and the only family he’s ever known, Barton’s owner M (Nan Martin) who also narrates the film.

While M’s slightly clichéd narration and the film’s frequent, confusing, and poorly transitioned over-reliance on flashbacks do pull us out of the film at times, it’s such an engaging, appealing, and refreshingly wholesome summer sleeper that those who are willing to overlook the contrivances will find themselves entertained. An ideal family film that seems like a perfect programming choice for a cable family or teen based network, Greener Mountains evolves into a romantic coming of age tale as the sweet-natured JP finds himself questioning his limited existence when the lovely Alice (General Hospital’s Kimberly McCullough) arrives from New York, hoping for artistic inspiration and an escape from a recent breakup.

Naturally, JP is drawn to the young painter but fears that the true details of his life would fail to impress a brainy city girl. So, predictably, especially for the romantic comedy paradigm which lately has favored the mistaken identity plot device, completely head over heels and willing to do anything to win her heart, he proceeds to fabricate an entire back-story about himself, trying to pass as an NYU student specializing in environmental architecture. Enlisting the aid of a friend in giving him a crash course on artistic masterpieces and Manhattan geography, JP and Alice grow much closer but their fledging relationship is threatened with the arrival of his manipulative, scheming, smugly handsome and conceited relative Eric (Brad Raider).

Essentially playing a Rob Lowe type versus Alice’s likable Alyssa Milano-like presence and JP’s easily winning, boyish Jake Gyllenhaal demeanor, we realize it’s only a matter of time before Eric — M’s grandson and JP’s adopted uncle — draws a wedge between the two. And although we sense he’s felt a certain rivalry and jealousy with the adopted and universally preferred and loyal JP, Eric’s true motives are revealed later on as we realize that he’s even more obsessed with the elderly M’s failing health and the future of the resort, which pushes the romance to the back burner as JP realizes not only how much is at stake but must make some tough decisions about his own future and just what he considers to be important in his life.

Respecting the intelligence of the audience who have faced several “lying lovers” and “spoiled schemers” plots, writer Hector Hill and director Chemel enrich what could have been an overly formulaic script by filling out the rest of the cast with some great supporting scene stealers including Christopher Guest alumni Michael Hitchcock as well as a nice parallel between the main story and the resort’s annual production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Despite a small screen feel, Greener Mountains is painterly photographed quality fare from Waterfall Films, which recently made its debut on DVD after earning a Jury Award at the Boston International Film Festival.

A Peck on the Cheek

Director:
Mani Ratnam

When asked why I don’t have children, aside from rattling off the traditional concerns of wanting to raise a child with a good man since I believe two parents are ideal or preferring to wait to ensure financial security, one of the most frequent arguments I encounter from other childless individuals within my 25-40 year old age bracket is the citation that it may not be the fairest decision to bring another innocent life into a world filled with such violent uncertainties including war, school shootings, horrific economic injustices, rampant drugs and intolerance. While the argument certainly feels all the more timely today, it’s curious that when I speak with much older friends and relatives, they offer the same exact reasoning that gave them a fertility pause decades ago. In fact, they tell me it was especially an oft-quoted political statement during the tumultuous Vietnam era and assassinations of prominent historical leaders in the 1960’s. And while it’s easy in this era of American-centrist news to naively feel as though this may only be unique to our citizens, it’s a fear that’s cropping up in the farthest reaches of the world where justifiably some are giving greater thought to starting a family by weighing pros and cons in a way that possibly hadn’t occurred to some individuals in both the United States and abroad to investigate that perhaps the near-mandate to grow up, marry, procreate, buy a home and continue working until death had larger moral implications to take into consideration.

It’s precisely this same line of thinking that the type of world a child is born into may not be worthy of such an innocent creature that provides the earliest obstacle in the newly arranged Sri Lankan marriage between the twenty-two year old beautiful Shyama (Nandita Das) and her new husband in Indian writer/director Mani Ratnam’s award winning Film Movement selection A Peck on the Cheek. Although the nervous, introverted Shyama finds herself unable to make eye contact with her husband during their nuptials, the two find themselves falling easily into a joking, flirtatious rapport once they’re alone, however their early bliss as newlyweds is cut abruptly short by their war-torn country where explosions seem as abundant as the trees in the forest and their consistently dangerous existence inspires Shyama’s husband to state he wants to wait to give her the eight children she longs for until at last there is peace in the country. However, Mother Nature and fate have other plans and when war finds the young married lovers cruelly separated, Shyama is shocked to discover she’s pregnant and, in a country where the hospitals are in ruins and wanting the best for her daughter, Shyama’s father sends her away where she goes into labor upon her arrival in an Indian refugee camp in Rameswaram.

Given the emotionally devastating prologue, I was completely unprepared for director Ratnam’s abrupt change in both tone and style as, following Shyama’s delivery, we cut to nine years later as her young, mischievous and fiercely independent daughter now named Amudha (P.S. Keerthana) lives with her two younger brothers along with her adopted wealthy, professional parents including the engineer and successful fiction writer Thiru (R. Madhavan) who publishes under the name of his television anchorwoman wife Indira (Simran). Set in a vibrant, colorful Madras, India, the film’s hauntingly lyrical beginning is wiped away by high-energy Bollywood production values, complete with musical numbers and the introduction of several characters—some far too confusingly quickly—until the film finally settles down into a more cohesive narrative as the nine year old Amudha learns on her birthday of her true origin and adoption. With emotions going overtime as she struggles to process this from feeling predictably betrayed to fascinated and worried how it will affect her life with her parents who adore her and had in fact, sweetly fallen in love while bonding over the young infant daughter who inspired her father’s most passionate story that secured his future wife’s affections. Driven by her concerns, Amudha makes some feeble attempts to run away and track down her biological mother until her parents decide to aid her in her quest to uncover her past as they journey to the still horrifyingly dangerous Sri Lanka to track down Shyama.

While some of the Bollywood numbers, the overly manipulative score, and a few far too convenient plot devices detract from the emotional impact of the otherwise very solid film, Ratnam’s movie is filled with gorgeous little details including the way it flows forwards and backwards in time with its most successful segment following that powerful introduction as the compassionate outcasts Thiru, Indira and baby Amudha all seem to fall for one another simultaneously, thus reminding us that-- while the world can be horrifyingly cruel and bleak-- we must take every opportunity to love each other while we’re here and reach out to one another, often forming a family with those we wouldn’t expect.

An excellent foreign gem to share with high school students and one that will definitely play even better to audience members who have experience with adoption, A Peck on the Cheek, which earned six national awards in its native India before screening at festivals around the globe has been recently made available to movie lovers here in the U.S.A. courtesy of Film Movement.

Then She Found Me

Director: Helen Hunt

“I mean it’s not gonna get any worse than this,” April Epner (Helen Hunt) explains after her husband Ben (Matthew Broderick) tells his wife that he’s made a mistake and doesn’t want this married life any longer when she learns that he’s resigned from his post teaching across the hall. Surely audiences, used to beginnings of films where spouses or lovers leave, laugh knowingly in recognition that yes, this must be the worst of it. However this first heartbreak comprises just the beginning of Helen Hunt’s directorial debut co-written by the actress from a novel by Elinor Lipman, which finds April thrown for yet another loop when her mother dies shortly after Ben’s announcement in the achingly real, bittersweet yet surprisingly humorous Then She Found Me.

I say humorous because while those two overwhelmingly depressing events would have led to the end of most stories or in real life would no doubt have caused an individual to withdraw from the world for awhile to cope with their grief, instead for April, they provide the impetus for another surprising revelation that comes in the form of a legal representative who informs April that her adopted mother wants to arrange a meeting. When the devoutly Jewish April meets spunky talk show host Bernice Graves (a pitch perfect Bette Midler), the two women couldn’t be more different yet it's precisely the meeting of these opposites that provides just the right opportunity for growth for each as they learn more about themselves and what they really want out of life as April, longing to be a mother, must contend with her own feelings of maternal abandonment in her quest to conceive a child.

While normally it would have been easy for the men to be lost in the process of this admittedly female-centric work, again we’re treated to a delightful surprise by way of the thinking woman’s sexiest man alive, Colin Firth, who stars as the bitterly divorced father of two who writes book jackets in his car in the school parking lot so that he can be nearer to his kids. Firth’s Frank who takes a liking to April nearly form the start as she accuses him of coming on to her just nine hours after Ben leaves, (which he may very well have been doing), offers April both affection and the family she’s always longed for as she tries to deal with both Bernice and her separation from Ben.

Never allowing itself to be pigeonholed by genre conventions and refreshingly shot with a naturalistic close-up heavy style to heighten its intimacy, Then She Found Me, which played at the Toronto International Film Festival before getting picked up by Think Film and Blue Rider Pictures is building up momentum around the festival circuit where it earned the 2008 Audience Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival as well as a richly deserved Breakthrough Director of the Year honor for Hunt at ShoWest.

One of my favorite features from the eighth annual Phoenix Film Festival that should strike a chord with audiences who sought out last year’s Waitress, Then She Found Me is further proof that it takes a woman to produce intelligent, emotionally satisfying, and mature fare for women who have been long ignored by our recent overreliance on testosterone fueled tragedies.