Blu-ray Review: A Most Wanted Man (2014)

Now Available to Own 

  Photo Slideshow

   

Unable to weave its overwhelming number of characters and conflicts together into a solidly crafted dramatic tapestry, director Gavin Hood's otherwise ambitious 2007 effort Rendition was one of several pictures to address the moral and ethical pros and cons of life in the post 9/11 landscape that ultimately crashed and burned at the box office.

Tackling similar terrain by way of a completely different throughline, The American helmer Anton Corbijn turned to fictionalized nonfiction while bringing former real-life spy turned Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy master novelist John le Carré’s exploration of extraordinary rendition to the screen with this tautly stylish adaptation of A Most Wanted Man.

And since it takes a certain degree of performance to pull off life as a secret agent, it’s perhaps (tragically) fitting that the film features what wound up to be the last starring role for the late great thespian Philip Seymour Hoffman who heads up the Oscar caliber cast for Corbijn’s strongest character driven nail biter since his directorial debut via the Ian Curtis biopic Control.

A German intelligence agent, Hoffman's Günther Bachmann relies on tried-and-true Cold War era information-gathering techniques (such as turning sources, person-to-person observation, and sturdy shoe leather) to “make the weather," as he explains in a key meeting with representatives from other governments.

Radiating power and integrity while striving to retain control over a questionable situation involving a recent foreign arrival, as the film gets going, Bachmann must identify the real motives and missing pieces in the mysterious back-story of a half-Chechen, half-Muslim young man who’s arrived in Hamburg seeking asylum and his father’s willed fortune.

Still stung by the time he got it wrong before 9/11 (which the viewer gradually learns may have had more to do with foreign blame-shifting versus actual error), it’s up to Bachmann to ascertain whether the man is a genuine threat or someone whose innocence is being clouded by circumstance and the ever-changing weather of the political climate Bachmann’s team specializes in forecasting.

Hoping to catch a shark he’s had his eye on long before he was tasked with sizing up the newest on the scene as a minnow or a barracuda, the spies zero in on Rachel McAdams’s refugee rights activist and Willem Dafoe’s private banker – angling to turn those whose paths the man has crossed into bait.

Desperate to run the operation his way, Bachmann finds himself butting heads with an American agent (played with commanding presence by Robin Wright as the type of operative that her House of Cards alter ego would probably have on speed dial).

Claustrophobic and complex, while admittedly it is slanted more one direction as a work of liberal humanism indicative of le Carré's ouevre (and given the author's own admission), Man still admirably implores viewers to see both sides of the story by layering it with shadows and light.

Largely subtle on the whole, although it doesn’t tip its hat quite as noticeably as, say TV’s Scandal does with its over-the-top speechmaking, the success of this approach is both hit and miss, however.

Harking back to Corbijn’s past as a music video director, Wanted struggles at times with stagy “see it from the cheap seats” visually dominant character blocking, ignoring organic movement in favor of landing a few cool frame-within-a-frame shots of structural symbolism.

While thankfully minor, certain sequences weigh a little too heavily on the film’s otherwise impressive commitment to realism via foreshadowing that's obvious to everyone except for the super spies on the screen (such as in a critical moment during the penultimate scene when they fail to notice a suspicious car that calls an unbelievable amount of attention to itself).

Nonetheless still on par with the suspension of disbelief demanded during the thematically similar Showtime series Homeland, in the end the complete conviction of the ensemble cast keeps us firmly rooted to the yarn being unspooled in A Most Wanted Man.

Bringing all of the players together in a final sequence that hits us like an emotional tidal wave and also reaffirms the author’s point better than any one monologue or individual frame, the work captured by ace cinematographer Benoît Delhomme looks and sounds as lifelike as a documentary thanks to Lionsgate’s stellar high definition Blu-ray transfer.

Boasting a terrific behind-the-scenes featurette with former German-stationed British spy turned The Spy Who Came In From the Cold scribe John le Carré himself, the highly recommended extra takes you on a biographical, historical, and topical tour of the work, the man, and its political terrain.

Not shying away from sharing his own views on the issues that inspired le Carré and the film, the informative bonus material also invites you to compare and contrast other works about extraordinary rendition, while encouraging you to do some information-gathering of your own.

An excellent companion to the main attraction, the author hosted walk-and-talk is as engrossing as it is compelling – making me wish that somebody would take the time to bring the author’s own story to the screen as a superior saga of extraordinary espionage both on and off the page.

   

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 voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review -- Nicholas Sparks: Limited Edition Movie Collection (Message in a Bottle; A Walk to Remember; The Notebook; Nights in Rodanthe; Dear John; The Lucky One; Safe Haven)

Now Available to Own   



Photo Slideshow 
 

Related Review:
The Last Song

Film Reviews

(In Chronological Order)

Message in a Bottle (1999)

Released in 1999, Angel Eyes helmer Luis Mandoki’s Message in a Bottle may have been the first big screen adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel but fifteen years later, it still ranks among the very best.

And while its success owes a great deal to the first rate ensemble cast including Kevin Costner, Paul Newman and Robin Wright, one can’t say enough about the immense behind-the-scenes talent that was firing on all cylinders in every single department.

In fact, watching it again nearly fifteen years since I first saw Bottle at the theater, I realized that the film’s most unsung but nonetheless valuable player is none other than cinematographer Caleb Deschanel whose lush magic hour photography of the Atlantic ocean serves as another character in the movie. The equivalent of visual poetry, Deschanel’s Bottle imagery stands alongside his career best work on films like The Right Stuff and Being There.

Par for the author’s course, it’s an absolute heartbreaker of a tale as Message found Sparks drawing inspiration from his own widower father who withdrew into himself and became a veritable recluse following the sudden tragic death of his wife.

Building ever-so-slowly towards the gut-wrenching coda, the movie opens with an intriguing hook as Wright’s Chicago Tribune researcher Theresa comes across the titular message in a bottle while running on the beach.

Using her skills to track down the author of the gorgeously penned letter about love, regret, confessions and recollections of the life he’d shared with his late wife Catherine, Theresa ventures to North Carolina to locate the man in the flesh, only to discover Garret Blake is as attractive as his seductive words (embodied as he is by Kevin Costner in his prime).

Falling head over heels for the shy widower and sailboat craftsman who’s no longer “good with people” as he confesses, Theresa is stunned to find her own feelings reciprocated by Garret’s over the course of the film.

Not wanting to jeopardize their brand new relationship, Theresa refrains from telling the man what first brought her into his life, which eventually leads to a protracted and predictable confrontation late into the movie that (per the early Sparks formula) ultimately results in a devastating comeuppance or cruel twist of fate, depending on your point-of-view.

While, given the way it seems to imply that a character shouldn’t dare to love again, the end is the film’s only real dissonant note in an otherwise lovely romantic composition, fortunately the rest of the film is beautiful to behold.

Played with the utmost sensitivity by the leads and handled with far more sophistication than the made-for-cable women’s weepie formula to which some critics feared it would adhere, while Message In a Bottle is a contemporary romance, its laid-back, organic approach makes it feel like a throwback to romances of the ‘60s and ‘70s including A Man and a Woman and Love Story.

Admirable for the way it defines its characters as more than just walking and talking plot points waiting to happen, Bottle raises questions and inspires some honest (and difficult) conversations along the way, which is something you seldom find in traditional mainstream romantic fare.

For better or worse as you’ll see throughout this box set review, Bottle set up the filmic formula for Sparks adaptations to come. And although Tinsletown would take a step backwards with their next presentation, the most recent succession of Sparks’ films from Dear John onward have thankfully harked back to this classy picture that started it all.

A Walk to Remember (2002)

As warm in spirit as the raggedy old sweater perpetually worn by the reverend’s shy, sweet-natured daughter Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore) in Adam Shankman’s modern day adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’s wholesome novel originally set in 1958, A Walk to Remember is an ambitious reimaging of one of the author’s most personal works.

Inspired by the life and death of his beloved sister (and the only one of his novels that Sparks confessed made him cry while bring it to written life), Shankman’s thoughtfully made but overall uneven update loses the old-fashioned tenderness of the novel in its translation from a past to present day setting.

From the near start-to-finish pop music soundtrack that interferes with the natural flow of the story by punctuating far too many moments with an MTV style collage of Top 40 hits rather than allowing us to react to the events on a more humanistic level to the awkward romantic chemistry between Moore and Shane West, this is one of the weakest links in the boxed set.

And although the charismatic rebel played by West was an early predictor of the great talent he would become on TV and film, unfortunately he just doesn’t click that convincingly with the likable yet relatively inexperienced singer turned actor Moore who (much like West) would also evolve into a far more compelling performer with time.

Likewise, it’s further hindered by a weak screenplay that reminds viewers of a cross between a Christian version of Love Story and Pollyanna as the film takes its predictably depressing Sparksian turn. And as we uncover the devastating truth about one of our characters only for them to remain as sunny as ever, the sweet yet naïve Walk starts to ring a bit false for those who’ve experienced anything similar.

While Sparks’s original source material and more innocent time period sold these plot machinations and underlying themes of Christian optimism better, they make this modern film all the more inauthentic by not allowing the characters the chance to be complicated, three dimensional people rather than idealized flawless “heroes.”

Well-intentioned yet underwhelming, although it’s sure to play better to teen viewers who can’t relate to the older characters in some of the other Sparks adaptations, everyone else should stick to the movie that they see in their head when they read the novel, which in my eyes unfolded like a teenage Douglas Sirk film in the same vein and color scheme of The Magnificent Obsession.

The Notebook (2004)

Whereas the onscreen chemistry between Shane West and Mandy Moore in A Walk to Remember barely generated so much as a spark, the palpable sexual tension and fireworks that go off between Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in the long-awaited adaptation of Sparks’s smash successful debut novel nearly generate an onscreen four alarm fire whenever the two share a scene.

And although the paparazzi were all too happy to document the fact that there was a burgeoning relationship between the two that blossomed into love offscreen, the reason their chemistry sizzled so well was thanks to brilliant planning by filmmaker Nicholas Cassavetes, who opted to shoot the film out-of-sequence for practical continuity purposes regarding Ryan Gosling’s beard and weight fluctuations.

Cassavetes' practical scheduling decision wound up benefiting his movie all the more. By first shooting the reunion of the former teenage sweethearts who had shared a lovesick summer seven years earlier, we see the awkwardness and hesitation the two would’ve had as professionals unfamiliar with one another and the way it makes their scenes coming face-to-face nearly a decade later that much more realistic.

Not knowing how to act around one another translated well to not knowing how to act around one another and vice versa when they went back in time afterward and shot the beginning of their love affair afterward. Because Gosling and McAdams had gotten all of the awkwardness with one another out of the way, it made their relationship all the more organic onscreen as they play off each other as lovers so much better thanks to that early foundation portraying reunited strangers.

One of those ‘90s pop culture touchstones like Bridges of Madison County and The Firm that likewise dominated the bestseller charts, The Notebook, which was inspired by the relationship of Sparks’s wife’s beloved grandparents, is at its best when it focuses on the extended flashback sequences of Gosling’s Noah and McAdams’s Allie, as narrated by James Garner’s elderly nursing home resident who’s reading the tale to Gena Rowlands.

And while it ultimately celebrates the power of true love and the way that it can defy anything, the undeniably depressing bookended contemporary sequences as Garner tries to jog Rowlands’ memory with the story in order to prevent her from succumbing to dementia even for a few minutes ultimately makes The Notebook far too somber when viewed as a film versus a book.

Honestly, for readers, the ability to put things into perspective, let them live in your mind and color between the lines of the moving yet downbeat romance helps you get through the storyline that much easier.

An intriguing cinematic mix, 2004’s The Notebook at last captures the old-fashioned WWII era spirit of the author. At the same time it also pays homage to the director’s influential independent filmmaker father – John Cassavetes and mother Gena Rowlands as well – given some of the manic energy on display in Noah and Allie’s fights that echo some of Cassavetes Sr.’s movies of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

While much like Sparks, Cassavetes’s heart is in the right place and the luscious cinematography, picture perfect art direction and sound bring everything vivaciously to life, it’s still a damn hard movie to watch, particularly for baby boomers and those whose parents are beginning to face a decline as it’s destined to hit viewers hard.

Although I think it would’ve worked even better without the overwhelmingly heartbreaking ending which in addition to depressing viewers likewise goes against everything the film had previously shown and told us about Rowlands’s dementia (by giving her sudden clarity), it’s nonetheless a gorgeous production and exploration of what it means to love someone for life.

And despite the fact that I wished the film would’ve known where to stop the action to better honor the way the characters lived their life rather than the way it ended, the film is well-worth tracking down.

Yet more than the heart-tugging finale which has become a Sparks trademark, the legacy of Cassavetes’ Notebook has only grown more popular with time. And while you can’t discount the novel, Cassavetes's work can likewise not be overlooked as the title’s popularity owes a great deal to the film as well as the undeniable chemistry between the two young leads that generate a number of sparks in this adaptation of Sparks’ debut Notebook.

Nights in Rodanthe (2008)
Note: Excerpted from Film Intuition's Original Theatrical Review (Published 9/26/08)

In her finest performance since her Academy nominated turn in Unfaithful (also opposite Rodanthe’s Richard Gere), Diane Lane plays the struggling mother Adrienne Willis.

Still reeling from her beloved father’s death and a separation from her unfaithful husband Jack (Christopher Meloni) who had an affair with someone in her carpool, she packs her kids including her Harry Potter clone son Danny (Charlie Tahan) and rebellious goth girl Amanda (Mae Whitman) off to Orlando with her ex.

Wanting an escape –  even one that comes with a fair warning that hurricanes are in the forecast, Adrienne returns to the Outer Banks coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina to care for the inn of her friend, Jean (Viola Davis).

Adrienne’s hurried preparations to leave her troubled, chaotic life behind her are interspersed with the same actions by the only guest paid up for four days in Rodanthe, Dr. Paul Flanner (Richard Gere) who, having sold his home, throws a duffel bag filled with Spanish/English medical texts into his sports car and drives off to Rodanthe to deal with a tragedy of his own.

Exquisitely photographed, the picturesque setting of Rodanthe is a character in its own right and none more so than the beautiful clapboard and blue shutter old inn by the sea, where rumor has it in the form of an old pirate legend, wild horses every so often can be seen running free on the sandy beach. Gee, do you think we're going to see any?

While it’s awkward at first as Adrienne cooks, cleans and tends to her one guest, Paul breaks the ice on the first night by carrying his dinner into the kitchen to mingle with the lovely stranger over wine, Dinah Washington, and stories of their heartache.

The chemistry between Gere and Lane is phenomenal and it’s more than obvious to even the most casual viewer who was unfamiliar with the two or their shared history working together, how comfortable they are in each other’s company. Yet, this is both a plus and a minus in Rodanthe.

For starters, they bond much too quickly and rather unnaturally as Adrienne begins unloading all of her baggage right from the get-go in a way that would send most men running. And despite the power of wine, mood music, evening l’amour, and the right lighting, they click far too easily, seeming like old lovers rather than new tentative ones.

And it's possibly because of this unconvincing dynamic that Gere never fully settles into his role –  maybe feeling as though (even subconsciously) Rodanthe is a cinematic extension of their other work together and they’re just finishing a conversation begun in earlier movies.

However, enough cannot be said in favor of Lane who turns Sparks’ overly sentimental moments (and some extraordinarily tacky dialogue) into the stuff of Shakespeare. And this is best on display near the end of the film in a scene following a conversation with James Franco when she not only tears up (along with the rest of the audience for the ten millionth time) but tears into that crying jag authentically in a way that makes us feel not just guilty for watching but wishing we were there to comfort her in her obvious pain.

That, my friends, is an actress, and Lane just keeps getting better and better with each passing year, despite the fact that her roles are getting fewer and far more predictable, in the unfair and ageist Hollywood system.

While the film could’ve benefited from sharper editing as it feels much, much, much longer than its ninety-seven minutes and you’ll need to come armed with Kleenex, cinematically it’s one of the better Sparks adaptations, and the reason is purely Lane. Although, as great as she is at making us cry, it would be far more pleasurable to once see her laugh. Nicholas Sparks are you listening? Or more importantly is your keyboard?

Dear John (2010)
(Note: The DVD Review that follows was Originally Published on 5/27/10)

As Dear John begins, at first the casting seems a bit too on-the-nose given the fact that G.I. Joe and Stop-Loss actor Channing Tatum certainly knows how to salute with the best of the Army and Amanda Seyfried just keeps sending mail (Mamma Mia!, Letters to Juliet).

However, once you get into the movie, you realize that by-George... er, rather Nicholas Sparks, director Lasse Hallstrom has managed to hook you once again in this gorgeously photographed nostalgic love story that feels like a throwback to light melodrama of the 1950s.

And while that would normally be a criticism for anyone else other than Hallstrom, since he excels at finding a balance in sentimentality, Dear John pulls it off extraordinarily well in what I found to be a surprisingly good heart-tugging romance that wasn't bogged down heavily by the blatant who's-going-to-die-now attitude of some of author Sparks' previous movie adaptations.

Perhaps the most successful adaptation of his work since the underrated, heart-wrenching Message in a Bottle, Dear John works better than some of the rest since like Bottle, it's chock full of interesting subplots that strengthen the romantic main plot.

And in one case, a subplot about father and son threatens to grab our attention even more than the primary love story as soldier on leave, John Tyree (Channing Tatum) returns to his southern home where he unexpectedly falls in love with a sunny idealistic college student named Savannah (Amanda Seyfried).

With a strained relationship with his reclusive coin-collecting father (a superb Richard Jenkins) reminding John of what he's left behind or has been running away from, he finds himself increasingly running towards Savannah for two weeks of Spring Break.

And fairly quickly, the young couple fall in love and forge a deep connection that continues after they separate and decide to correspond by numbered letters since there's no guarantee what order in which they'll arrive when you're sending overseas.

However, their relationship is tested after news of 9/11 breaks and, torn between the end of his tour in the military and life with Savannah verses fighting in Afghanistan, Tatum's John realizes he can't abandon his unit no matter how much he longs to return home.

And although – with the benefit of hindsight – that sequence is handled a little too briskly both emotionally and logically as somehow he's able to return home to the U.S. and she can meet him at the airport as if nothing has changed, the lovely thing about Dear John is that it doesn't immediately go in the directions which you assumed it'd be heading. No, in this film life intervenes and they struggle in their commitment to one another so many thousands of miles apart.

In addition to the wonderful chemistry between the two leads, John also boasts great subtle turns by both Jenkins and a nice, long overdue quality part for actor Henry Thomas (Legends of the Fall).

Although it suffers a few bumps near the end both in the included finale and the DVD's alternate ending which I liked a bit better despite its over-sentimentality, Hallstrom's beautifully realized romance proved to be far more successful than most Sparks adaptations thanks to the intelligent handling of the script by both the filmmaker and its writer Jamie Linden.

The Lucky One (2012)

The equivalent of a wartime message in a bottle with the added bonus of a good luck charm, when Zac Efron’s U.S. Marine Logan finds a beautiful woman’s photograph in the middle of Afghanistan, the words written on the back bidding an unknown soldier to “keep safe” manage to do just that for Logan. The discovery of the photo keeps him occupied and in one place for the few previous seconds that keep him alive during a mortar attack.

The first of two near-death experiences that he survives and attributes to his mysterious golden-haired guardian angel, when Logan arrives home he keeps the promise he made to a friend to find the stranger he owes “big time” and thank her any way he can.

Tracking her down via the lighthouse in the background of the photo he notices online, Logan walks from Colorado to Louisiana with his dog with the sole intention of simply thanking her.

But when he comes face-to-face with the disarmingly pretty Beth (Taylor Schilling), who just so happens to be wearing the same shirt in the photo that she is when she greets him, the tongue-tied Logan lets himself be talked into a job working at her dog motel.

Finding himself growing increasingly attracted to the hardworking single mother who constantly finds herself on the losing end of a power struggling with her prominent police officer ex, Logan finds himself putting down roots with the hope of becoming a permanent part of her life.

The second tale in addition to Safe Haven to merge romance with the element of danger including a villainous policeman, while Haven employs a stronger mystery thriller element, The Lucky One uses the ex as a minor character and subplot in the otherwise absorbing romantic drama.

Though this one boasts far greater character development than the otherwise solid Haven, The Lucky One likewise exceeds expectations thanks to the nuanced portrayals by its core cast including Blythe Danner in a scene-stealing performance as Beth’s grandmother.

While by now Sparks seems to have mastered his formulas, swapping out characters and plot details to create endless storylines that deal with his favorite themes, this one marks a terrific war-themed contemporary companion piece to Lasse Hallstrom’s Dear John and also bears a lot in common with Bottle. And in fact, in the succession of John, this production and Safe Haven, we find the three strongest adaptations of his work since Mandoki’s Message in a Bottle.

Brought sumptuously to life by Shine writer/director Scott Hicks, who also helmed another contemporary romantic novel favorite turned film with his arthouse adaptation of Snow Falling on Cedars –  while this takes a much more mainstream approach than the overly avant-garde yet lushly made Cedars, the end result is a superb feature film.

With this in mind, hopefully Lucky will be lucky post-release, only gaining in popularity with time by garnering the same word-of-mouth popularity that The Notebook experienced over the years.

And fortunately, thanks to actress Taylor Schilling’s recent breakout success on the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black, things are looking up on that front as more viewers curious to explore her previous portrayals are sure to discover this truly worthwhile film.

Safe Haven (2013)

Oscar nominated My Life As a Dog, The Cider House Rules and The Shipping News filmmaker Lasse Hallstrom returns to direct his second Sparks adaptation following the surprisingly effective Dear John with an even stronger work this time around thanks to Sparks’s new command of the romantic thriller.

Blending together the emotional weepie love stories that made him a household name with far more involving, contemporary plotlines that have life or death stakes which go beyond the cruel twists of fate (from cancer to accidents in novels of the past), Sparks has crafted one of his most gripping works that easily lends itself to film.

Professional dancer turned actress Julianne Hough shows greater range than ever before as a battered wife who flees her abusive husband and journeys to a sleepy southern town where she starts over in a picturesque seaside community.

Once settled, Hough’s Katie slowly builds up the courage to let others in from a friendly new neighbor (played by Cobie Smulders) to Josh Duhamel’s Alex, a widowed shopkeeper and father of two whose adorable youngest daughter takes a special interest in Katie before her father does the same.

Unfortunately, while Katie may have found a new place to call home, the man who haunts her dreams has yet to let her go, literally haunting her in real life as well by using his powerful position as a police officer to try and track her down.

While this leads to a terrifying if predictably inevitable showdown between the abusive husband and his much-abused wife, Safe Haven has more than a few surprises in store, offering up a few twists as to the truth behind a subplot and character that makes this one vastly more satisfying than a number of other Sparks tales.

One of the best film versions of his work so far and one which likewise builds on the strengths of earlier Sparks endeavors from the sophisticated Bottle to the moving ensemble drama Lucky One, Haven finds Nicholas Sparks moving beyond the “final character death” gimmick that plagued his earliest entries by giving us a happier ending than we’re used to seeing on titles with his name attached.

A welcome change of pace for Sparks who seems to be growing more ambitious with each new novel, here’s hoping that Safe Haven – much like The Lucky One – will usher in a new decade of excellent Sparks movies that take what worked so well in the last few pictures and plotlines and build from there.

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.

Blu-ray Review: Mean Girls (2004)

Far from being just another teen movie-- the subsequent production of the first screenplay completed by Saturday Night Live's first female head writer Tina Fey was likewise far from being just another SNL movie.

Although it was produced by the NBC late night show creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels-- who has overseen and helped launch “the theatrical debuts of ‘SNL’ cast members since 1986--” Tina Fey wisely chose to avoid the trappings of bringing a skit character to the big screen following the mixed success of some of the Lorne Michaels’ productions in the 1990s such as the lackluster Night at the Roxbury, Superstar, and The Ladies Man.

No instead, Fey-- who as the Paramount Studios Production notes reveal “has long been fascinated by social dynamics”-- chose the unlikely nonfiction source material penned by the nonprofit Empower Program’s co-founder Rosalind Wiseman, whose efforts to help “empower girls and boys” to “stop adolescent violence,” were captured in the authentic and heavily researched book Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence.

Impressed by the insightful way that Wiseman managed to tap right into “how girls navigate through the cliques and hierarchies of adolescence,” Fey notes that what affected her most as a comedy writer (and woman) was “the anecdotes of girls that were interviewed for the book.” While Fey admits that “Rosalind, rightfully, takes it very seriously,” Fey’s creative brain went into overdrive, realizing how truly funny they were since in her opinion, “the way girls mess with each other is so clever and intricate, and probably very instinctive.”

Leaping to channel the hierarchies and “sophistication of their social structures,” which Wiseman acknowledged in her bestseller were so complex that “our best politicians and diplomats couldn't do better than a teen girl does in understanding the social intrigue and political landscapes that lead to power,” Fey found a wealth of information through interviews, the written anecdotes, and personal observations to weave together what is arguably the strongest teen film since Amy Heckerling's Clueless, (which was inspired by Jane Austen's Emma).

Instantly hilarious yet alternately filled with sharp observations, relatable experiences, worthwhile lessons rolled into jokes, empathy, and heart—while it’s far less freewheeling in its style than Fey’s zany, award-winning hit 30 Rock-- the fact that Mean Girls is a cleverly masqueraded “Lindsay Lohan” vehicle that plays equally well to women of all ages is part of what makes it such a success.

Far before Lohan became sadly a paparazzi target for her infamous and worrisome misadventures as one of Hollywood’s young A-list starlets living live way too fast, she reminds us once again in this 2004 role coming right off the heels of her earlier and successful work in Walt Disney’s Parent Trap remake co-starring the late and lovely Natasha Richardson and Freaky Friday alongside Jamie Lee Curtis’ spirited turn just how talented she truly is at what she does.

Easily falling into the role as the sweetly innocent and naïve fifteen year old home-schooled Cady Heron whose zoologist parents return with their daughter in tow from life abroad in Africa only to drop her in the incredibly unfriendly and Darwinian terrain of a typical Midwestern high school—it isn’t long before the mathematically gifted junior catches the attention of a few of her classmates from decidedly different circles.

Initially adopted by fellow outcasts straight out of John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, and Sixteen Candles-- Lizzy Caplan’s artistically gifted and cynical Janice Ian and Daniel Franzese’s gay, activities obsessed Damian—she’s quickly warned about the school’s popular living Barbie dolls dubbed The Plastics who rule the school.

Essentially describing the girls’ existence as “celebrity culture shrunk down to high school size,” the tight trio of pretty and wealthy girls led by the ingeniously two-faced “Queen Bee” Regina George (The Notebook and Family Stone star Rachel McAdams) along with her gossip filled, mistreated sidekick Gretchen (Party of Five’s Lacey Chabert), and the dim-witted sycophantic bimbo Karen (Big Love and Mamma Mia!’s Amanda Seyfried) soon develop an interest in Cady.

Quickly, Regina invites her to join them for lunch—more in the vein of The Godfather style advice of keeping friends close and enemies closer than anything else. As McAdams explains in describing her intelligent and cruel character’s actions regarding the new girl, “she recognizes that Cady is pretty enough and smart enough to be very popular, and she realizes that if Cady becomes high school savvy enough, she has the potential to throw Regina right off her throne. So she immediately takes Cady under her wing to keep an eye on her.”

However, Janice—an old former middle school best friend of Regina’s who was badly scorned by the she-villain—soon enlists Cady to serve as a high school spy, reporting back everything that happens as she’s plummeted head-first into the rule-based, externally carefree but internally stressed girl world that is The Plastics.

And when Cady finds her own motive for not trusting Regina after she develops a crush on the handsome Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett) whom Regina dumped awhile back but begins dating again just to wield her power over Cady—soon Cady, Janice, and Damien go full-scale into Plastic Sabotage striving to take away each and every thing that gives Regina her power such as her “army of skanks,” “hot man candy” killer body, and more.

Of course, once they begin to stoop to Regina’s level, the art of high school manipulation becomes faster to grasp than advanced mathematics which Cady begins purposely failing to try and get closer to Aaron, much to the dismay of her earnest, hard-working divorced teacher (played by Fey). Losing a sense of who she really is now that she’s thrown in with the real jungle instead of the African one where animal rules were more clearly defined—Cady’s decisions spiral out of control.

Fey’s Mean Girls-- directed by Lohan’s Freaky Friday helmer Mark S. Waters (House of Yes, Just Like Heaven, Spiderwick Chronicles, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past)—is a completely refreshing film that despite being incredibly funny and a return to the golden age of intelligent teen comedies that treated its target audience as though they had working brains as opposed to most of the garbage being hurled their direction at the multiplex, benefits as well from its ability to be used as a fun teaching tool.

For, no matter which decade you found yourself in the four years of high school hell—Cady’s experiences instantly ring true as there always have been and always will be Plastics but thankfully at the same time, there will always be those lovable outsiders who recognize how fleeting and foolish the entire thing is before they’re able to go out into the real world. As the director acknowledges in a smart behind-the-scenes extra “Only the Strong Survive” that’s included in Paramount’s recent Blu-ray release of the film, it’s a great attempt to show the frustrations and dichotomy of high school students who are “trying to act like adults but are not adults.”

Also featuring some great supporting turns by scene-stealer Amy Poehler as Regina’s mom and Tim Meadows as the school’s principal—hopelessly lost in a school where the girls have gone wild (and being given one of the best lines as he threatens the gym teacher with a baseball bat to “step away from the under-age girls”), Mean Girls boasts commentary with Waters, Fey, and Michaels, along with a blooper reel, deleted scenes (with commentary), multiple featurettes, and three hilarious ads with the actors in character.

While the only extra that’s been upgraded to HD for the Blu-ray is the original theatrical trailer as this edition repeats the same extras available on the original DVD, the Blu-ray’s quality is a noticeable if not overwhelming improvement over the original version as the outrageous costumes, production design and details used throughout really “pop” in 1080 pixels making the fashions a bit brighter and great soundtrack sound better than before.

Additionally updating the clarity to the point where individual strands of hair and threads on clothing are suddenly exceptionally vivid and noticeable—while from a film buff perspective—it’s not one you must upgrade to in Blu-ray since the DVD manages to work just fine for the purpose with the same extras, but for those who have yet to purchase it or are considering moving their collection entirely into high definition, it’s well-worth owning in any format.

Since, in my opinion--to this day, it’s still one of only a handful of post John Hughes films that can rank among the very best fare made with teens in mind that succeeds most likely because regardless of one’s age or gender, you’ll be able to identify strongly with at least one or more of the characters from Fey’s brilliantly conceived screenplay.

Contests/Giveaway: Win The Lucky Ones on DVD from Lionsgate Home Entertainment!

Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page

DVD Synopsis
(From MovieWeb)

"A timely drama about life in America today, Lionsgate's The Lucky Ones stars Rachel McAdams, Tim Robbins and Michael Pena as three soldiers on leave trying to make sense of their lives during an unexpected road trip across the United States.

A humorous, moving portrayal about the challenges of coming home, The Lucky Ones is directed by Neil Burger (The Illusionist) from a script by Burger and Dirk Wittenborn.

After suffering an injury during a routine patrol, hardened sergeant TK Poole (Michael Pena) is granted a one-month leave to visit his fiancé. But when an unexpected blackout cancels all flights out of New York, TK agrees to share a ride to Pittsburgh with two similarly stranded servicemen: Cheever (Tim Robbins), an older family man who longs to return to his wife in St. Louis, and Colee (Rachel McAdams), a naive private who's pinned her hopes on connecting with a dead fellow soldier's family.

What begins as a short trip unexpectedly evolves into a longer journey. Forced to grapple with old relationships, broken hopes and a country divided over the war, TK, Cheever and Colee discover that home is not quite what they remembered, and that the unlikely companionship they've found might be what matters the most."

Contest Details:

Open to All Readers With Ability to Play Region 1 DVDs. Entries Must Be Received by Midnight EST on 2/13/09. Film Intuition Respects Your Privacy and Will Not Share Any Information With Third Parties. 2 Winners Will Be Notified Via E-mail on 2/14/09. Additionally, entry forms without a mailing address and/or with a blank or incorrect trivia answer will be disqualified.

Trivia Question:

Rachel McAdams received her big break with her turn as the wicked Queen Bee in the hilarious Mean Girls. Although the screenplay was written by 30 Rock's Tina Fey, it was originally based on a book. What was the name of the book and the author of the work upon which Fey drew her inspiration for Mean Girls?

CLICK HERE to Enter the Contest

And don't forget to check out and enter our other current giveaways and contests exclusively available on Film Intuition.

Want to see more contests? Help Support Film Intuition for free by registering for iGive and downloading Yahoo's fast, free, and easy to use iGiveiSearch Toolbar that donates pennies to the site every time you search the web.

Married Life (2008)

The Heart Wants What It Wants,
Until It Doesn't Anymore.

Originally published on Blogcritics in my
Under the Radar Feature

There’s an old phrase: “the heart wants what it wants.” True enough, although perhaps it should read: “the heart wants what it wants until it doesn’t anymore.” Whether it’s a child growing too old for their favorite teddy bear, a girl taking down a poster of her favorite boy band, or a boy deciding that his favorite video game isn’t cool enough anymore, this desire to acquire along with the persistent thought that there’s always something much more enticing just around the corner only grows stronger as we age. And it especially seems to rear its ugly head as we begin dating and discover that some friends find themselves in relationships simply out of habit or fear of solitude, just biding their time until something better comes along or realizing much too late that the person we want isn’t on our arm as we’d first assumed in the mad throes of early passion, but rather the promise of someone entirely different altogether. Or is it?

Such is the stuff of Greek tragedies, women’s weepies of the 1940’s and ’50s, soap operas, TV melodramas, and dare I say a large instigator for action in one of my favorite genres—film noir. Instead of simply relying on Ladies’ Home Journal article advice in the “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” column, trial separations, couples counseling, or tawdry extramarital hotel dalliances—in the days of film noir, infidelity, or even the sheer lust for another turned deadly in cinematic classics such as Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice.

A self-proclaimed “ardent film buff, with a particular love for 1940s and 1950s movies,” as he noted in the press release, writer/director Ira Sachs crafted a wickedly funny hybrid of both film noir and women’s weepies of the same two decades with his woefully underrated stunner Married Life, now available on DVD. Co-written with Oren Moverman and based on John Bingham’s vintage pulp novel Five Roundabouts to Heaven, this sumptuous period film set in 1949 tells a deceptively simple story that—in the hands of anyone else—would’ve seemed entirely predictable. Summed up best by Sachs himself in the release, he relishes in the smile-inducing, one-sentence version of “a gentle, middle-aged man who falls in love decides to kill his wife because divorce would cause her too much pain.”

Needless to say, it’s the type of risky plotline sure to send audiences running in precisely the other direction to see the latest over-the-top blockbuster where the lines between the heroes and villains are as defined and clearly outlined as the characters themselves, yet I was consistently amazed by my inability to predict any and every plot twist throughout Sachs’ film. Additionally, I was mesmerized by not only the film’s beauty but its wickedly funny screenplay acted to perfection by a truly gifted quartet of performers including Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Cooper, and Rachel McAdams.

Sadly, despite playing to rave reviews as well as being screened as an Official Selection at both the Toronto International and New York Film Festivals, Married Life is one of those hidden gems that seemed destined to become forgotten. This is especially apparent when you witness the baffling marketing campaign that didn’t really serve the comedic texture offered up by the filmmakers. As co-screenwriter Oren Moverman himself told friend Ryan Gosling in a Fall 2007 Filmmaker Magazine interview entitled “The Overachiever,” the complicated “film sort of found itself in the editing,” (pg 45) which may in fact be the reason the film’s trailer didn’t exactly manage to capture the spirit of the finished result.

Married Life Trailer

Noting that additional voiceovers were written and the evolving shape of the piece changed during the post-production, Moverman continued offering his admiration for Sachs’ “enormous amount of confidence” and willingness to change things in “a really great process discovering what the film could be through the editing,” (Filmmaker, 45).

With subtly intimidating roles in films such as American Beauty and Breach, by now actor Chris Cooper has sort of cornered the market on playing a deceptive everyman whose true demons lurk just below the surface. In Life, he plays Harry, a hardworking businessman and devoted husband, father, and grandfather who reveals a secret to his best childhood friend, Richard (Pierce Brosnan) shortly into the film. While to the casual passerby, Harry’s picture-perfect marriage to Pat (Patricia Clarkson) seems to be the envy of all, his wife’s emotionally cool exterior and belief that sex is the sole key to happiness along with affection and compassion has left her husband with the dire wish and need for true love. Yes, get that non-stereotypical gender characterization—a man wants love and a woman wants sex.

Of course, predictably, Harry’s wish has been filled when he falls for a beguiling younger woman who seems to love him unconditionally and he tries to explain his situation to the notorious bachelor Richard who in his narration throughout reveals his belief that “marriage is an illness like chickenpox,” to which he is immune. However, despite this, passion and love is something to which Richard’s entirely susceptible as he becomes taken with Harry’s beautiful, blonde mistress Kay (Rachel McAdams) upon her entrance which seems to echo Vertigo due to not only the use of a green dress but also a breathtaking and unabashedly romantic score by Dickon Hinchliffe.

Committed to ending his relationship with Pat, Harry makes great conversational strides one evening before his wife experiences a panic attack. And after a fateful encounter with a hitchhiker, Harry makes the bizarrely macabre and overwhelmingly egocentric decision to conduct a mercy killing to spare his wife any further grief. Although the audience realizes far before Harry does that there’s much more to Harry’s plans than meets the eye as we discover that Pat too is looking for love elsewhere. And in a revolving door of romance, Richard has decided not to let something as precarious as a lifelong friendship get in the way of trying to seduce Harry’s girl. Soon, torn between two men, the introverted Kay with a tragic past, finds herself pursued in two varying ways via a more intimate, stay at home approach with her married lover and the boldly freewheeling, on-the-town, overwhelm of Brosnan’s dashing Richard.

Harry and Kay: “I Want to Love You.”

Richard and Kay: Date Night

Richard’s Request

And as all characters grow increasingly fixated on pursuing their own desires, the playful tone of Married Life grows much tenser and wildly unpredictable as it makes its way towards an inevitable, yet completely unexpected conclusion. While the entire cast turns in uniformly excellent performances, I was especially charmed by Brosnan who actually plays the film’s most deceptive character in the end, knowing as he himself reveals enough information to set everyone free but chooses not to for his own gain.

Yet, it’s Harry who has the most complete arc as Sachs noted in the press release since he “starts off in the beginning of the movie knowing the least about the other characters,” but intriguingly “by the end, he knows the most.” Sure to elicit endless discussion, Married Life is one of those works that in a way may benefit from its sleeper status as it plays infinitely better on a smaller screen and when shared with others, as you may wish to rewind segments, pause and chat, predict, and obsess throughout.

While it may be risky viewing for certain married couples suffering through their own melodrama, Sachs adamantly refuted the idea that it’s a cynical look at marriage, stating that to him, long-term relationships are “always a great, even noble, challenge.” And also as he shared in the release he hoped Life would be considered as “a humanist approach to a genre story, so in the end, it becomes perhaps not really a genre picture itself.” Additionally, attempting to offer up a tale to “make people feel less alone,” when viewers are “in bed and… feeling slightly alienated from your wife or loved one… [you can] realize that… [you] are just like the person in the next house, who’s also coping with these kind of questions,” Married Life is sure to play even better on a second and much less nerve-wracking viewing.

So in the end, while it’s impossible to predict what the heart will want next, Married Life serves as a wise, inventive reminder that we’re all in this together, falling in and out of love and realizing sometimes that our wandering eyes are just that. Yet optimistically, we stay tuned for the next offering—whether it’s Mr. or Ms. Right or a sensational DVD just around the corner. And while, as far as this reviewer’s concerned, I’m still waiting on the gentleman but for right now, I’ll happily settle for the DVD.