Netflix Movie Review: The Guilty (2021)

Arriving 10/1 on Netflix

If you haven’t seen “The Guilty,” you should see “The Guilty.” Let me try this again. If you’ve seen “The Guilty,” you might like “The Guilty.” No, that’s still not quite right. It might help if I tell you that there are two versions of “The Guilty.” There’s the original 2018 Danish film from director Gustav Möller, which was one of the year’s very best movies, and then there’s the new American remake directed by Antoine Fuqua, which debuted last week in theatres in selected cities and will arrive on Netflix on October 1.

Knowing this, I'm sure you can probably guess which of the two pictures I prefer because that's usually the way it goes with remakes of foreign films that frequently lose something vital in the English translation (just like all too often, the book is better than the movie). Of course, there are definite exceptions to this, but in the case of “The Guilty,” it isn't enough just to say that, yes, as predicted, the original version of the film is far superior to the American remake.

Because as a work, it is utterly dependent upon a few major plot revelations that slowly and methodically unfurl over the course of its very stressful roughly ninety-minute running time, since Fuqua's “The Guilty” adheres very closely to Möller's own film, the version you see first might just dictate which one you prefer. 

Set over the course of a very long night in a 911 emergency call center in Los Angeles, as Fuqua's film opens, we meet a police officer who has been temporarily reassigned during an investigation into some sort of conduct violation that we learn more about later on.

In the midst of L.A.'s fire season where the calls are coming in hot and the air is so smoky and polluted that it's exacerbating his asthma something fierce, Jake Gyllenhaal's Joe answers incoming distress calls with the same degree of breathless disdain, cynicism, and entitlement with which he used to patrol the city's streets. Whether it's people requesting help because they took too much speed or were robbed by a hooker (both incidents play out exactly as in the original), Joe counts down the minutes until his hearing the next day, after which he hopes to get off the phones and go back on the beat. However, suddenly, a call comes in that does the unthinkable; it makes Joe not only care but also get very involved.

A woman's (Riley Keough) voice comes in on the line speaking to Joe as though he were her child. But before he disconnects from what he assumes is a wrong number, something in the timbre of her voice stops him. Shaky, tear-filled, and in a state of panic she's trying to hide, when he hears a man (Peter Sarsgaard) ask her who she's talking to, Joe starts piecing together the narrative that she's been abducted by her husband by asking the woman yes or no questions only.

Barely able to sit still in his chair – his jittery hand forever fondling his inhaler because he knows it's only a matter of time before he runs out of breath once again – he becomes a cop again before our eyes. Demanding help from the California Highway Patrol and others who are inundated by fire, crises, and crime calls of their own, Joe tries to route squads to pull over a white van traveling eastbound on the I-10 and also send cars to her home to check on these children that she keeps talking about.

Getting even more frantic when they get disconnected and she doesn't answer the phone, he calls her home to talk to her young daughter who helps Joe fill in a few more blanks. Rather than be the first one out the door from his final shift, he abruptly refuses to leave until he sees this case through to the end. Restrained by legal red tape, jurisdictional issues, and bureaucracy, Joe eventually goes into an isolated room, closes the blinds, and devotes the rest of the film's running time to trying to bring Keough's Emily Lighton home safely.

That old macho rage at a forefront – for reasons both good and bad – he makes a request to his loyal sergeant (voiced by Ethan Hawke) to go and kick some doors in when the more he hears and uncovers about Emily, the more alarmed he becomes. But is he really listening or is he working out his own personal issues with regret as a father in the midst of marital strife? Is he fighting to save Emily or himself?

Both versions of “The Guilty” serve as a reminder that whenever one interacts with emergency services in the form of police, fire, or paramedics, it's on one of the worst days of our lives. Communication, as the works reveal, is at the forefront of our experience, and limits are placed on what gets conveyed, understood, the authority figure's abilities to help (read: not hurt), and whatever they're going through on their own as well.

Where the two works differ greatly is in terms of their approach. Subtle, whittled down, and respectful enough of the audience's intelligence not to give us a lot of overt messages, excuses, spell everything out, or punctuate every new revelation with an intrusive score, Möller's “The Guilty” is masterful in the way it slowly builds to its unbearably tense conclusion. 

In stark contrast, anyone who's seen a film by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day,” “Southpaw,” “Olympus Has Fallen,” etc.) knows that subtlety is not his strong suit. The new "Guilty" is utterly overstuffed, both with the baggage of Joe and the gravity of America in the present moment. Filled with symbolism, from the fires raging outside and internally in Joe to that damn inhaler, and punctuated with cacophonous sound to drive his points home via a score that “tells” you what and how to feel, "The Guilty" is a lot to absorb without a headache. Also, it's loaded with explanations for behavior that in some ways augment the film by commenting on the problems faced in our country and in others, just play like speechifying sound bites.

Whereas the original film (which Gyllenhaal first saw at Sundance in 2018 and knew immediately he wanted to remake) was content to let the battles within his dynamic main character come to the forefront as needed and often in his micro-expressions or through actor Jakob Cedergren's eyes, the new version makes our lead much more vocal, demonstrative, and unhinged. One of the strongest American actors of his generation, Gyllenhaal is more than up to the task to bring humanity to what is largely a one-man show, save for the remarkable contributions by members of its vocal cast, including Keough, Sarsgaard, Hawke, Paul Dano, and others.

But while the film goes big when it should go little, its tendency to push to the extreme lessens as it continues, when Fuqua, his cinematographer, and editor pull back slightly, and Gyllenhaal dials the bravado down several notches. As someone who grew up around cops, let me be the first to say that they most definitely have a Cop Voice, Cop Manner, and Cop Behavior. And just like when someone gets out of the military, it takes some time for them to leave that behind and just assimilate with the rest of us, Fuqua – who's made many movies dealing with this very thing as both director and producer – understands this well. Gyllenhaal's Joe learns to modulate his voice and behavior the longer he's on the phone with Emily and the film is better for it.

Still, though, the first chunk of his “Guilty,” which was written by “True Detective”'s Nic Pizzolatto (though by their own admission somewhat rewritten by Fuqua and Gyllenhaal), plays like a dropped character and subplot that was edited out of “Training Day.” Far more of an extreme contrast than we truly need as Joe evolves over the course of the movie, as I watched this one, I kept thinking of not only the original Danish production but also Steven Knight's brilliant UK movie “Locke,” from 2013 as well.

Truly a one-man show in terms of actors on the screen, in Knight's film, we see Tom Hardy's character answer a phone call on a drive home that changes everything for him. Something as simple as which direction he's going to go and what he's going to do next has life-altering stakes, and just like in both versions of “The Guilty,” made a few years later, the film's drama comes from his interactions with others whose voices we hear on the other end of his various calls.

Shot in real-time as Hardy made the same drive each night and went through the same emotional drama only a handful of times as if it were a play, both versions of “The Guilty,” were shot similarly. Yet instead of just letting it play out real-time over 90 minutes with Hardy in a car and the cameras ready to go the whole time, both “Guilty” productions were completed in shoots ranging from 11 (Fuqua) to 13 (Möller) days. But by focusing less on manufacturing drama and more on letting it play out on its own, both “Locke” and the original version of “The Guilty” work so much better with far less artifice than the 2021 rendition of the latter.

In the end, of course, Fuqua's film might still be worth watching if you liked Möller's original “Guilty" and are curious what the new incarnation might look like Americanized, with all of these gifted actors, and with the volume turned way, way up. But if you've never pressed play on the original, I'd highly recommend seeing both "Locke" and “The Guilty” before you see “The Guilty,” to see how to tell the story of a man on a phone at a crossroads in his life right.

Text ©2021, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: Loving Pablo (2018)

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Greeted by the sight of armed men waiting for her as soon as she lands at Pablo Escobar's estate for a private party in 1981, when Colombian journalist Virginia Vallejo (Penélope Cruz) first meets her host (played by Javier Bardem), not only does she not recognize him, she fears that he's going to kidnap her for ransom.

Explaining the guns away by saying that they're meant to protect guests from the exotic animals he has on his property, even though he doesn't abduct her outright, very soon it becomes clear that the married son of a poor farmer turned successful businessman has stolen Vallejo's heart.

Though at the top of the list of Colombia's nouveau riche, we discover that at the time of their first meeting, very few people – outside of the Medellín Cartel, that is – knew precisely how Escobar and his associates acquired so much wealth so quickly.

However, once he shows her one of his philanthropic endeavors to build housing for the poor and sees the children of the slums running through garbage just to get a glimpse of him, Vallejo decides that it's less important how he's made his money than how the man dubbed "The Colombian Robin Hood" uses it.

Building up his profile on her television network to acquire enough fame and power to get elected to political office a year later, by now the source of Escobar's outrageous revenue has become increasingly obvious as, instead of "Robin Hood," the businessman from Medellín has become internationally known as "The King of Cocaine." And as Vallejo soon discovers, if anyone gets in his way, he either buys them off or has them killed.

Based on Vallejo's bestselling 2007 memoir Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar which chronicled not only their romantic relationship but also corruption at the highest levels of the government of her country which, thanks to Escobar, became known as "the murder capital of the world," the film, written and directed by Spanish helmer Fernando León de Aranoa, takes some liberties for dramatic effect.

And dramatic, as it turns out, is the key word for Loving Pablo, which is so over-the-top in places that – in the aforementioned scene wherein Vallejo lands on Escobar's property – before I discovered that Vallejo was a reporter, I simply assumed Cruz was playing a soap opera star who'd wandered over from the set of the latest film by Pedro Almodóvar.

Speeding through more than a decade of complicated history, including international drug smuggling and corruption as well as the personal lives of Vallejo and Escobar, although Pablo uses subtitles to translate Spanish to English, I found myself wishing it also would've served up a timeline or a secondary documentary style voice-over to tell us where we are in the scheme of things.

A longtime passion project of Javier Bardem, the Academy Award winning star (who also produced the film made by his Mondays in the Son director) shared in the film's production notes that he turned down the role of Escobar in a number of productions over the past twenty years because "they didn't invoke any feeling beyond a stereotype."

Though it's Vallejo's story overall, in Aranoa's adaptation of her memoir, we do indeed see several different sides to the figure as Escobar goes from a greedy up-and-comer climbing up the power ladder to a paranoid madman who barely reacts while his men use a chainsaw to remove someone's limbs in a private prison under his control.

Yet while it's his real life wife, fellow Oscar winner Penelope Cruz, who steals the movie from start to finish, Bardem is predictably excellent in the role, in spite of his tendency in the first act to – like Marlon Brando in The Godfather – mumble so much as Escobar that we wish we had subtitles for him even when he's speaking English.

Though fortunately we either become accustomed to the rhythms of Bardem's Escobarian mumbles to understand enough of his dialogue (or he learns to enunciate more clearly as Colombia's Robin Hood becomes a country conquering cocaine king), unfortunately the film's rushed storytelling and lack of cohesion damage the overall character arc.

While most viewers with Netflix are more than familiar with Escobar via their acclaimed albeit gritty series Narcos, there's no denying Bardem's star power, especially in the final sequence leading up to Escobar's death, which is so compelling that you wish the rest of the movie had worked nearly as well.

Fans of the two stars will enjoy watching the couple act opposite one another onscreen as Cruz manages to distract us from the film's hundred mile an hour pacing – elevating every scene she's in to the level of a high class soap – and practically winking at the audience alongside the always terrific Peter Sarsgaard's DEA Agent as if to say, "I've got this."

Criminally under-utilized, Sarsgaard might as well be playing a man named DEA Agent for all we actually know about what surely must be a composite character.

Despite that, Aranoa manages to show us just what he's capable of as a director in a truly thrilling sequence early on in Pablo as a semi truck jackknifes across a Florida highway before a cartel plane lands right behind it and people in waiting vehicles hurriedly load its contents into vans and trucks nearby all to the tune of "Let it Snow."

While the dark humor is right out of Scorsese, the scene itself is reminiscent of Doug Liman's underrated American Made, and once again illustrates just how good Pablo could've been with the right script and tone.

Trying to tell a story that is far too massive and complex to be compressed into a 125 minute running time, although it's made with superior ingredients, including not only Cruz and Bardem but also a standout score by The Secret In Their Eyes composer Federico Jusid, in the end Loving's recipe never quite comes together as a whole.

And while Aranoa's latest work isn't one I'd recommend rushing out to the theater to see, given its irresistible combination of sudsy drama and campy excess, Loving Pablo is sure to reach more viewers in its run on cable – holding those staying in on a Saturday night hostage with entertainment so over-the-top that you'll feel as though you've just gotten off the plane with Vallejo.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

DVD Review: Blue Jasmine (2013)

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While most people have a tendency to try and present the best version of themselves – spinning small yarns of white lies to protect feelings or reassure someone you really do like their homemade gift of scratchy wool polka dotted socks – there are those who lie so often and easily that it’s their main conversational approach from one situation to the next.

And in Woody Allen’s twenty-first Writer’s Guild nominated original screenplay Blue Jasmine, he’s created one of his most fascinating (anti)heroines in at least two decades of filmmaking via the eponymous Jasmine brought so unnervingly to life with unparalleled tenacity by Oscar winner Cate Blanchett in yet another remarkable performance that’s poised to garner her a second Academy Award.

Named Jeanette at birth but later changing that handle to the seductive Jasmine to suit the romantic life she dreams for herself as a hopeless fantasist, Blanchett’s Jasmine is the type of individual who’s taken the theory that we’re all the star of our own “movie” quite literally. Living a life of theatricality, Jasmine speaks in soliloquies to nobody in particular and hopes for a new plot twist whenever things don’t go her way.

One of those aforementioned individuals who’s told so many lies, half-truths and slightly altered accounts and likewise been lied to (and played like a record by her dreamy, manipulative older husband Hal) – when we first meet Jasmine it only takes us a moment to realize that she can no longer tell the difference between fact, fiction, reality or fantasy.

And while admittedly for a woman who’s been heartbroken and suffered a nervous breakdown in the past, the title Blue Jasmine fits accordingly, it doubles as a recurring theme in its own right as the start of the tale Jasmine tells to anyone who will listen how Hal met her standing alone at a party while the song “Blue Moon” was playing and swept her off her feet.

Moreover, that pitch-perfect “Blue Moon” lyric of Jasmine standing alone serves a dual purpose in Allen’s film as it also foreshadows Jasmine as a woman who will always be somehow left off center, off to the side, outside looking in at the real world she rejects when it’s judged side-by-side with her own fantasy.

In a telling flashback, Alec Baldwin's Hal confesses that he fell in love with her name which – because it is in itself a lie – reaffirms the fact that he fell in love not with the woman but with the idea or fantasy of her. Therefore, we realize that Hal not only never really knew this woman he called his wife at all but also – considering the way he created his Madoff like Ponzi schemes – preferred a life of magical reality than actual reality and therefore inspired Jasmine’s tendency to do the same before their lies all came crashing down like a house of cards.

A delicate romantic who is having a tough time getting back on her feet after she lost everything and was ostracized from her Park Avenue social circle following the FBI's arrest of her shady, philandering husband for Madoff-like crimes, Jasmine travels to San Francisco to stay with her adopted younger sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins).

Upon first glance, Jasmine seems like she’s wandered in from Tennessee Williams’s Glass Menagerie or Streetcar Named Desire as a Blanche DuBois type dependent upon the kindness of strangers. And it's a reference that fits indeed as further research reveals that Blanchett had recently played that role on Broadway and Allen had actually nixed a scene in Jasmine that took place on a streetcar for fear it would be deemed too much of a dead-on homage.

And while the hint of DuBois is a given, in my eyes however, I see Jasmine as a distinct Woody Allen character with roots in the auteur’s onscreen Annie Hall alter-ego Alvy Singer. In Allen's breakthrough mainstream success, he described himself in a youthful flashback featuring a Marilyn Monroe look alike as a person who always had a hard time telling the difference between imagined and actual reality.

Thus, a Williams/Allen hybrid by way of Blanchett – as the film opens Jasmine arrives in San Francisco and settles in with the hardworking, blue collar, divorced mother of two, Ginger. Revisiting the same complex sisterly sibling dynamic evident in Interiors and Hannah and Her Sisters, as the two women – a complete study in contrasts – try to make the best of the situation, it becomes obvious that Jasmine’s arrival is the equivalent of a powder keg ready to explode in Ginger’s relationship with her loving but hotheaded, fittingly-named boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale).

Nosy and loud, intriguingly Chili is the only one able to see through all of Jasmine’s pretentions and phony heirs to call out the way she’s alternately neglected and taken advantage of Ginger in the past. Adding to this, the film relies on repeated flashback sequences to jump forward and backward in the narrative to offer us a glimpse at the unromantic reality behind the breakup of both sisters’ marriages.

Focusing on the way their relationships started to go downhill when Ginger and her then-husband (Andrew Dice Clay) visited Jasmine in New York and began to see the truth behind Hal’s façade as he two-timed Jasmine – the beginning of the end for all was set in motion when Jasmine foolishly talked her relatives into trusting their hard-earned life savings to Hal to invest.

A multilayered film that’s richly acted and interpersonally complex by way of the number of subplots and characters it’s able to successfully juggle without shortchanging any of them, Blue Jasmine further shows respect for its audience’s intelligence by unveiling the events of two different timelines simultaneously.

And due to its dense structure, a second viewing makes you appreciate the way it cleverly pays off on ideas and lines in one narrative a few acts later on in the second timeline. Yet perhaps Blue Jasmine’s greatest feat is in the way that it never foreshadows its most surprising character driven plot twist that leaves viewers stunned and likewise eager to go back and rewatch certain moments for a second or third time since it makes us rethink everything we thought we knew about a given character.

A daring film in which the whole success of Allen’s emotional rollercoaster hinges on an unreliable narrator that’s forever changing her story, getting lost in the past and altering the facts of any given situation to best deal with the crisis at hand – Blue Jasmine serves as a stunning showcase for Cate Blanchett’s unparalleled talent.

As much an exploration of what happens when the American dream falls apart as it is a portrait of a woman under the influence of fantasy, Blue Jasmine is as topical as it is timeless.

Not just Woody Allen’s strongest film since Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Jasmine is certain to have a much greater impact than Vicky in the future as one of his most rewarding contemporary classics that recalls the existential exploration of life on display in his ‘70s and ‘80s masterpieces. In other words – and much like its main character and leading lady – Blue Jasmine stands alone indeed.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: The Cinema Pride Collection

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The Children’s Hour (1961)

With the censoring Hays Code no longer in effect, director William Wyler remade his own 1936 film These Three, which was based on Lillian Hellman’s critically acclaimed stage play about two schoolteachers whose life, work and status in the community is ruined when a young bullying student outs the women as lesbians by spreading cruel lies comprised of exaggerating snippets of conversations she and other students overheard.

While the ’36 version changed the plot drastically to a heterosexual affair that divides the women’s friendship, in this adaptation by screenwriter John Michael Hayes, Hellman’s original source material (inspired by a real life story about two Scottish teachers) was translated in an extremely faithful and still devastatingly intense work.

And directing the woman he helped introduce to the world – Audrey Hepburn – in a role unlike any she’d previously tackled makes The Children’s Hour quite the conversation starter. However, Hepburn’s co-star Shirley MacLaine admits that the two women never did discuss the real nature of their characters’ relationship and instead played it straight from the page since the topic was still scandalous onscreen for the time. Nonetheless The Children’s Hour, which also features a top notch supporting turn by James Garner in his first role since suing Warner Brothers to be released from his Maverick contract, remains just as haunting as it always did nearly fifty years after its release.

La Cage Aux Folles (1978)

Whereas it took The Children’s Hour decades to be filmed in a way that closely matched the original play, 1978’s La Cage Aux Folles only took five years since its stage debut to become an international box office film sensation.

The Italian and French production maintained the best of both countries in terms of cinema with the brilliant employment of Italian composer Ennio Morricone to complete a memorable film score for the piece to augment its naturally funny set-up as a pitch-perfect French comedic character driven work, co-written by Francis Veber who has since become synonymous with the country’s film industry comedy scene.

In the film, after long-term gay couple Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) and Albin (Michel Serrault) discover that Renato’s beloved twenty-year straight son (Remi Laurent) is getting married to a girl with ultra conservative parents, the two theatrical entertainers undergo the challenge of a lifetime. Forced to play it straight, the couple winds up hosting a family dinner for their prospective in-laws all within a less than forty-eight hour time span.

Having spawned a successful franchise of two sequels, a superior yet extremely faithful American remake in the mid ‘90s and a Broadway musical production as well, it's a fascinating experiment to watch Edouard Molinaro’s terrifically funny foreign classic before you visit one of the other interpretations.

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

Originally made for television, the fifth film from Oscar nominated director Stephen Frears based on a screenplay from respected yet frequently controversial playwright Hanef Kureishi helped launch not only the careers of those behind the camera (as just three years later Frears made a Hollywood splash with Dangerous Liasions) but also solidified the extraordinary burgeoning talent of eventual Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis.

Going for a rather matter-of-fact treatment of homosexuality, the orientation of its main character Omar (Gordon Warnecke) — the Pakistani-British young man torn between loyalties to his relatives and ancestral culture and his dedication to life among his friends in ‘80s Thatcher era Britain — often takes a backseat to the political, sociological and economical issues facing society during that time.

Filled with unexpected comedy, pathos and a richly complex cast of characters including scene-stealer Day-Lewis as an old schoolmate and childhood friend of Omar’s who has become part of a racist band of hoodlums in recent years, My Beautiful Laundrette works well on a number of levels.

Despite a slightly protracted and overly slick ending, its overall authenticity in capturing the time, place, and feeling of economic hardship during the Thatcher years along with the growing prejudice in the streets as immigrants began running local businesses makes My Beautiful Laundrette an emotionally engrossing document of its era.

One of the standouts in this box set, Laundrette is a far cry better than the pretentious Bent or thinly drawn Imagine Me & You. And while you may wind up wishing Kureishi had decided to give the work a far more memorable and serious title, there’s still no denying its importance as an early showcase for audiences to discover just how well Frears manages to pull us into the worlds of his films and – much like his uniformly strong casts – make us feel as though we're part of the onscreen family.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

Although it’s a far cry better than Hollywood’s “three drag queens on the road” vehicle To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, I’m afraid that much like the play and movie inspired by the ABBA song featured in the film – “Mamma Mia” – I just don’t understand why this Australian import has reached camp/cult status.

While admittedly Priscilla has the makings of a camp classic, just based on the fact that Stephan Elliott’s film features British New Wave bad boy Terrence Stamp in a role as a transsexual but the movie is rather manic in its tone – never sure if it wants to just shoot for the moon as a drag queen extravaganza or get serious in the midst some pretty harrowing scenes of violent homophobia.

In addition to Priscilla’s identity crisis, one of the main characters played by Memento star Guy Pearce is so over-the-top and irritating that you find yourself ready to press eject if onscreen queens Stamp and Hugo Weaving don’t eject him from the bus for more than just one night on their journey across the outback. This being said, there’s not a whole lot I can rave about Priscilla aside from its Oscar winning costume design and a multi-layered beautiful turn by Golden Globe nominated Stamp whose supporting role becomes the one we’re touched by the most throughout the film's running time.

The Birdcage (1996)

Mike Nichols’s old comedy partner Elaine May adapted this wildly raucous remake of the ’78 foreign film La Cage Aux Folles that managed to remain both true to the plot and even a majority of the dialogue of the original work but ensure that leads Robin Williams and Nathan Lane would have plenty of room to improvise.

Despite its tremendous box office returns, upon its release reaction to the work was somewhat divided. Namely, half of the audience seemed unable to look past the stereotype embodied particularly by Lane as Albert, the partner of Williams’ Armand who also works as the headliner at their Miami South Beach drag club.

Meanwhile the other half of the audience was extremely impressed by the way the actors transcends the stereotype to truly get straight audiences to look past orientation and empathize with the couple when Armand’s son begs them to play straight for his fiance’s extremely conservative parents (Gene Hackman and Dianne Weist).

While I can see both sides of the argument, I tend to lean towards the latter reaction as Nichols’ film marks the first gay-themed film that I ventured to the theatre to see growing up as a straight, suburban teen.

The fact that I wasn’t alone in the audience as a heterosexual fully involved in the plight of the characters to me makes the film a resounding success in subtly getting the message out about tolerance, acceptance and respecting everyone’s rights to live as equals. Yet by adding in a spoonful of sugar, the filmmakers manage to consistently leave viewers in hysterics – smiling and laughing at something we may not have otherwise experienced while opening our eyes to other points-of-view.

With a far superior third act to the original film that works better on both a comedic level with Lane managing to win over a clueless Hackman as the son’s old-fashioned homemaker "mother" and likewise winning back our respect for their selfish son with some tender declarations, The Birdcage remains one of Williams’ most triumphant comedies in a decade that also scored the actor a hit in another drag related comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire.

Bent (1997)

Although it would take me another year or two to officially “discover” Clive Owen in Mike Hodges’ terrific contemporary film noir Croupier, the actor who’d first received his big break earlier in the ‘90s in Britain’s ITV series Chancer took on a rather daring role in playwright Martin Sherman’s adaptation of his own 1979 stage work Bent.

Relishing in extremely graphic images of the hedonistic lifestyle of sexually adventurous Berlin residents in the WWII era (including a cameo by Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger as a drag performer), director Sean Matthias' Cannes award winning film earned a dreaded NC-17 rating. However, if it were released today (in the post Talk to Her society of films by Pedro Almodovar among others), I doubt that the same rating would still hold up.

While stunning, it’s a shame that so much emphasis was placed on the production design and exhibitionist sequences that kick-start the movie. As the work continues and Clive Owen’s gay character lands in the concentration camp at Dachau – managing to work out a deal and accept the Jewish designated yellow star as opposed to the gay pink triangle – the film could’ve benefited from the same attention to detail utilized in the beginning.

Similar to the far stronger 1985 screen interpretation of Kiss of the Spider Woman, Bent unfortunately remains extremely stagey throughout. Therefore, despite an excellent turn by both Owen and his co-star Lothaire Bluteau who portrays a fellow camp prisoner given the dreaded pink triangle which he describes as the lowest one can get, the film never manages to reach us on an authentic emotional level since it can’t help feeling like something akin to a play that’s simply been captured on celluloid.

The Object of My Affection (1998)

Working from Stephen McCauley’s eponymous novel, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein crafts some truly dazzling speeches for lead actors Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston in British director Nicholas Hytner’s underrated effort. Although there’s a lot about the work that doesn’t ring true from a logistical standpoint as characters all click into place for a cookie cutter, politically correct conclusion, the film has nonetheless been a bit too harshly judged.

When viewed today, it’s easy to understand why it’s been dismissed by critics in retrospect as either an Aniston film shot to capitalize on the popularity of the Friends actress whose hairstyle became a ‘90s craze or just another straight woman/gay best friend clichéd flick that became trendy during the era of Will and Grace, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Madonna and Rupert Everett’s similar venture The Next Best Thing. However, when you try to remain objective and remove the tidal waves of Friends and gay best friend trends, you’re left with much to admire thanks largely to Wasserstein’s compassionate script that centers on misplaced love in all arenas from straight to gay and platonic to romantic as the film’s characters fall in love with the wrong people at the right time or vice versa.

Equally dedicated to their work with the next generation of New York youths, Rudd’s gay first grade teacher George Harrison meets and quickly becomes fast friends and roommates with Aniston’s at-risk teenage counselor Nina Borowski shortly after George discovers from Nina that he’s been dumped by his boyfriend Tim Daly. Happier spending time together than with those they’re dating including Nina’s overbearing, fast-talking boyfriend Vince (John Pankow), the two friends seriously consider becoming their own makeshift family when Nina learns that she’s pregnant and realizes that she’d rather raise the baby with George rather than Vince.

And despite the fact that her step-sister (Allison Janney) warns Nina that she’s harboring more romantic than platonic feelings for her gay knight in shining armor given their already confusing and rather physically affectionate personal boundaries, it takes awhile for our leads to stop rationalizing and move from fantasy to reality in realizing what it is they truly want and need from one another.

Object is bolstered by some superb characterizations from its supporting cast, particularly Nigel Hawthorne as Rodney, a friend the two make late into the picture after George begins to move on with his love life. And although the movie does suffer slightly from its protracted, far too neat wrap-ups for its large ensemble cast, it’s well-worth exploring again the second time around to see what you may have missed in the midst of so much hype during your first viewing when it was nearly impossible to see Aniston in something and not think “that’s Rachel Green!”

Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

Now a contemporary classic, co-writer and director Kimberly Peirce’s feature film debut Boys Don’t Cry starring Hilary Swank in her first Oscar winning role as Best Actress is arguably the most critically acclaimed inclusion in The Cinema Pride Collection. And after watching the film today, it's damn near impossible to imagine what the true story of the short life and tragic death of twenty-one year old Teena Brandon would’ve been like if directed by interested party Diane Keaton with actress Drew Barrymore in the lead.

While obviously the professional, impressive women would no doubt have taken the responsibility of the work seriously, I think a large reason why Boys works so extraordinarily well is that aside from starring in The Next Karate Kid, Hilary Swank was relatively unknown to us at the time of its release. Likewise, Peirce’s passion for the project which manifested during a five year research mission and an award-winning Columbia University precursor short film that helped generate her funding and connections to get the feature produced made the resulting ’99 effort far more personal, heartfelt and intimate.

With so many underdogs involved in the production of Boys overcoming obstacles to live out their dreams similar to the person whose story they gathered to tell that stepped to the beat of her own personal drummer, the movie transcends the limits of both cinema and its delicate subject matter. Ultimately the film impacts viewers personally so that everyone can identify with Brandon’s sole wish just to live life while remaining true to herself. In Brandon’s case this mission meant that the female who was born with the name of Teena Brandon would embrace and overcome her “sexual identity crisis” by living her life pre-sex change operation as a male, flipping her name around to become Brandon Teena.

Careful not to gloss over anything regarding Brandon’s life and transform the character into some sort of symbol or icon, Peirce presents us with the pain, passion, and perseverance of the Nebraska individual through choices Brandon made that were both wise and foolish.

Shortly into the film, Brandon gets kicked out of her gay cousin’s place. Skipping out on authorities and a subpoena for her arrest, she befriends Candace (Alicia Goranson) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) after a bar fight.

Once John intervenes in the scuffle, he takes his new pal Brandon down to their place in Falls City, Nebraska where Brandon – still presenting himself as the boy he’s convinced he is rather than a female lesbian – quickly falls in love with John’s old flame Lana (Oscar nominated Chloe Sevigny).

As their relationship heats up so does suspicion regarding Brandon. Unfortunately nobody could’ve predicted how horrifying the turn of events would be when the truth about Brandon is finally revealed to deadly effect.

Pulling no punches, Boys Don’t Cry's extended attack and rape sequence nearly garnered the title an NC-17 rating and it's downright excruciating to watch given its stark authenticity. Yet even though admittedly, Peirce’s extraordinary docudrama isn’t the type of work I can imagine wanting to view more than once, it’s one that I feel would benefit us all to be shown in high schools in order to open up a dialogue and ensure that teens and young adults feel safe in expressing their own identity without fear of hatred, violence and murder.

Kissing Jessica Stein (2001)

Although described by Helen (Heather Juergensen) as the “Jewish Sandra Dee,” twenty-eight year old copyeditor and secretly aspiring painter Jessica Stein (Jennifer Westfeldt) initially reminds audience members of a “Jewish Annie Hall.” And this is especially apparent near the start of the film as the woman whom her matchmaking mother reminds her hasn’t dated anyone in a year endures a series of bad dates with a wide variety of men from fellow gym enthusiasts to those overly picky about how to break up the dinner bill.

And even though she explains that she could never tell her therapist because it’s way too private, somehow – beat down way too much by horrible dates and mixed signals – Jessica answers a personal ad placed by another seemingly straight woman in the form of Juergensen’s Helen, which grabs her attention thanks to its beautiful quote by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Walking back and forth from Helen repeatedly when they first meet as a freaked out Jessica tries to hail a cab, soon she surprises herself completely. After letting the possibility of sharing a drink with Helen “marinate” for awhile, soon enough those baby steps lead her to begin tentatively dating the heterosexually promiscuous museum curator, despite the fact that physical intimacy is something she still balks at much like the virginal Doris Day in old Rock Hudson sexless sex comedies.

Further complicating matters when her old college boyfriend and newspaper editor boss Josh (Scott Cohen) starts getting far more interested in her personal life to the point that he actually becomes nicer to her at work, Jessica finds herself in one confusing romantic comedy that sparkles with wit, appealing characters, and fresh conversation based upon Westfeldt and Juergensen’s original play Lipschtick.

One of the first movies to digitally remove background images of the World Trade Center, tragically the quintessentially Woody Allenesque New York movie played on the day before and after 9/11/01 during the Toronto International Film Festival in its second festival premiere. However the talented scribes’ inventive work, helmed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, still remains a remarkably funny, unfailingly likable, and surprisingly unique look at being single in the States.

Imagine Me &You (2006)

Before the minister asked attendees if there were any objections to the marriage of Rachel (Piper Perabo) and Heck (Matthew Goode), perhaps it would’ve been better if he’d checked with the bride. In writer/director Ol Parker’s debut film, pretty and thoughtful Rachel is all set to marry her best friend Heck but finds herself pulled by unexpected stirrings on the way to the altar after she catches sight of Luce (Lena Headey), the beautiful florist her mother had hired to piece together the bouquets and arrangements for Rachel’s big day.

At the reception, the two become fast friends when Luce rescues Rachel’s oversized wedding ring from the party punch bowl. And although Rachel tells husband Heck that she feels a certain near soul-mate like friendship connection with Luce, she and Heck decide to play matchmaker by inviting Luce and Heck’s obnoxious humorous admittedly cad like friend (as is always the case in British comedies) to dinner but before he arrives, Luce admits that she’s just not that into men.

Her confession complicates Rachel’s ability to spend time with her new friend, not out of prejudice but the opposite as she begins to see that her lifestyle may be the one Rachel had belonged in all along, although Luce tries to distance herself from her acquaintance not wanting to mess with a couple’s happiness.

Despite the overly polite and – as several critics pointed out – unbelievably convenient and nearly apologetically chaste proceedings that made Imagine Me and You the second ’06 film including the bright but admittedly far fetched Gray Matters to deal with a marital love triangle and female’s coming out, the charms of not only Headey and Goode but especially the always under-utilized Piper Perabo make it entertaining.

Although as a straight filmgoer, I can see the arguments of my gay friends in their opposition to the trite plot points and feel this may have begun in the film’s initial stages as it was originally written as a heterosexual love story, it’s still another forgettable, escapist British comedy that’s sure to delight.


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FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Text Copyright © 2014, Film Intuition. All Rights Reserved. http://reviews.filmintuition.com/

Blu-ray Review: In the Electric Mist (2008)

Venturing Out of the Bayou
And Onto DVD & Blu-ray
3/3/09

Explore the Entire Dave Robicheaux Series

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Maybe it just works better in Europe.

Acclaimed, award-winning French director Bertrand Tavernier's adaptation of the sixth Dave Robicheaux mystery-- In the Electric Mist-- penned by screenwriting team Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski from the novel by James Lee Burke somehow managed to lure the director back to making an all English language feature and also dubiously scored a Berlin International Film Festival Golden Berlin Bear nomination for his effort. And if somehow you're able to make it all the way through the film, something tells me you'll be scratching your head as well...

Initially slated for a theatrical run due to its incredibly talented cast headed up by Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones, Oscar winner Mary Steenburgen, Oscar nominee Ned Beaty, and critically lauded stars Peter Sarsgaard, John Goodman, and Kelly Macdonald that even boasts a cameo from American indie auteur John Sayles somehow fizzles rather than sizzles in its hum-drum mystery which takes place in the Louisiana bayou.

It is set in a society still ravaged by Hurricaine Katrina and indeed the event is referenced numerous times subtextually and involves a heartrending visit by our no-nonsense, recovering alcoholic detective Dave Robicheaux (Jones) while trying to string together clues in solving the gruesome cases of two dead young women. And in doing so, the film tries to move beyond the limits of its police procedural crime and punishment genre by venturing unsuccessfully into the realm of psychological thriller as Robicheaux and other characters commune with the ghosts of dead in a few downright odd hallucinatory scenes that don't quite gel with the film's uneven tone.

Throughout Mist, I was never sure if it was aspiring to be the type of modern day neo-noir given a Cajun makeover that worked so well in Robert Altman's underrated The Gingerbread Man and even some of the superior round-about mysteries of John Sayles (Lone Star, Silver City) or if the film is a trippier gothic piece. Sadly, it never manages to engage us on either level or on a simply casual one in spite of its the talented ensemble that's bogged down by uninspired dialogue (example: "Elrod's a shitbird, but I love him."). The script excels when it appears as though it's taken directly in voice over narration form from the novel as Robicheaux describes an A.A. friend who always called at night until one night someone had to call for him.

Further muddled by lackluster, poorly lit cinematography that manages to suck the ethereal beauty right out of the southland (making it a crisp yet waste in a Blu-ray transfer) and even filming the characters appearing as movie stars on a location shoot (Saarsgard and Macdonald) in an unflattering light-- everything about the film feels forced and inauthentic right down to its straightforward conclusion.

Granted, it has its moments thanks to 3:10 to Yuma's composer Marco Beltrami as well as a spirited turn by John Goodman bringing some of his Coen Brothers flavor to a role as New Orleans gangster "Baby Feet" Balboni that makes him sorely missed whenever he's offscreen. Yet, more often than not, other actors such as Steenburgen (as Jones' wife) are given little to do but simply go through the motions in underwritten roles and unfortunately as a whole, it's weaker than your average made-for-television mystery of the week. Again, this is especially unbearable given the extraordinary talent involved, excellent location, atmospheric jazz by five-time Grammy Award winning musician Buddy Guy that's all wasted in the finished product.

Again, while it may be better in translation overseas or for those who aren't acquainted with what a real Cajun set film should look and sound like nor the exceptional work offered by the cast and other high quality offerings from the distributors Image Entertainment-- ultimately it's not enough to recommend this one and instead I'd suggest going with the book by bestselling author James Lee Burke in its place.

Rendition

Director:
Gavin Hood

Director of the Oscar winning Best Foreign Film Tsotsi, former lawyer Gavin Hood calls on both his legal expertise and interest in the moral issues of politics for his follow-up film Rendition. The film, one of the first to crash and burn at the box office in America where audiences decided to vote against the war in Iraq and instead go for alternative entertainment, gets a second life on DVD where it should fare much better given that films of bleak subject matter tend to overwhelm on the big screen and also due to the jaw-droppingly talented cast of Oscar winners and nominees.

Reese Witherspoon plays Isabella, a devoted wife roughly eight months pregnant living in Chicago with her husband, son and mother-in-law. When her brainy chemical engineer husband Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), an Egyptian who holds a green card but not U.S. citizenship fails to return from his conference in Capetown, South Africa, Isabella fears the worst as it’s revealed that Anwar has been taken into CIA custody and rerouted shortly after his D.C. arrival to another country where he can be tortured and interrogated ceaselessly for information related to American national security. After it’s learned that his cell phone received several incoming calls from a known global terrorist Anwar is apprehended and his rights are stripped under the rendition policy which, born under the Clinton administration has become increasingly utilized after Bush’s war on terror began to transfer prisoners to other facilities in countries where the laws on how to acquire intelligence are far more dangerous and employ both electricity and later the infamous topic of waterboarding in a number of brutally intense scenes. Metwally’s Anwar manages to hold his own, insisting that he is innocent and that there has been some type of mistake which eventually finds an advocate in young CIA desk worker Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) who was grudgingly promoted to attending the interrogation after a colleague was killed in a terror attack.

Back in the states, worried and frightened Isabella tries to piece together the puzzle of her husband’s disappearance by asking help of Alan Smith (Peter Sarsgaard) an old flame from college who now works in a prominent position as an aid for Senator Hawkins (Alan Arkin). Acting on her behalf, Alan repeatedly tries to get the attention of CIA head Corrine Whitman (a chilling Meryl Streep) which results in the film’s best scene when fed up from unanswered calls, he confronts her in public to no avail. In addition to the main plot, another is interwoven back in South Africa as a teenaged girl (Yigal Naor) runs away from her domineering father (who is running the Anwar interrogation) to stay with her boyfriend as he begins to climb the ranks of a small sect of a much larger terror network responsible for the blast that killed Freeman’s colleague. If it sounds confusing, it is very much so as the film careens a bit out of control near the ending when the plotlines intersect and there’s a few jumps in time and place that will make your head spin.

The actors, especially Metwally are all very good, although Gyllenhaal seems far too young for his role, but ultimately, you’re left dissatisfied by an overly complicated finale that The Big Picture’s Colin Boyd noted leaves us to not only wonder “what happens next to so many of these characters,” but we’re also asked “to assume a considerable amount by the end.” It’s these loose ends and Rendition’s resulting air of mystery that doesn’t seem to fit the film’s tone as a think piece rather than a Clancy like thriller but hopefully, at the very least, it will get viewers talking about the tactics used to extract information and how reliable or moral they are in our global climate.