Movie Review: The Last Suit (2017)

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His destination is a place that must not be named, a place where such a profound horror occurred during World War II that – instead of saying Poland aloud – Holocaust survivor Abraham Bursztein (Miguel Ángel Solá) prefers to write it on a sheet and hold it up for the person with whom he's communicating... and even then only when he must.

Refusing to give both the word or the place power, Abraham, we discover is only going there to keep a promise to the Christian man who saved his life during the war. Running away from Argentina the night before his children are scheduled to move him into a retirement home, in this crowd-pleasing, award-winning film festival favorite from writer/director Pablo Solarz, Abraham embarks on a journey to revisit his past with the new friends he meets along the way.

Taking the long way around isn't just one of the themes of the movie, as it turns out that's precisely what writing the script was like for Solarz. Having penned his first draft of The Last Suit back in 2004, after giving the rights to a film company before it reverted back to him five years later, he wrote it a few more times, revealing in the production notes that, "After all of this, the last version is not... so different from the first. Sometimes it is necessary to go a long way away to connect the emotions that moved us at the beginning."

A deeply personal work, Suit was inspired by how history affects the generations from the way that his paternal grandfather would also refuse to say Poland aloud to "the ignorance of my parents about what had happened to their people," and his childhood "near obsessive curiosity...when you are forbidden to speak about certain subjects," that eventually led to him reading about another survivor's quest as an adult.

Wanting the audience's connection to the emotions of the film's lead character to take precedence over the plotline, Solarz's confession that he "was not interesting in unfolding a series of events," is evident in the film and it's what sets the unique work apart.

Alternating between heartbreaking flashbacks and silence to moments of humorous interactions with fellow travelers, including a younger man named Leo whom he intentionally annoys at first sight before coming to his rescue at the security checkpoint, The Last Suit follows in the tradition of other first rate Latin American "road" movies where the essence is in the journey rather than that nameless destination.

And because he chooses to move forward and continue on his mission where others would get sidetracked by misfortune or as in Abraham's case, the opportunity to reconnect with a daughter with whom he lost touch following a blow to his ego, The Last Suit is less episodic than other genre works by design.

Yet while the final cut feels like it's missing the rest of a key scene involving his daughter Claudia (Natalia Verbeke), we're able to deduce at least the outcome of the rest of their interaction based on Abraham's next step.

A bit coincidence heavy in places as he never fails to meet precisely the right person at precisely the right time, in the end we're so moved by his plight that we're happily willing to overlook it. The Last Suit is the second film I've seen from Solarz following his breakthrough script for Carlos Sorin's acclaimed 2002 award-winner Intimate Stories, which chronicled the plights of three individual characters.

It seems that Solarz is at his best when he charts the journeys we all take, including those that bring us back to a place we – like Abraham – might not be able to mention aloud, from where he fled following the war, only to return near the end of his life in order to keep his word to an old friend. Thus, Solarz reminds us that even in a place where Abraham experienced humanity's worst, it's only because somebody in the same location represented humanity's best that he is the man we see traveling today.

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Grace is Gone

Director: James C. Strouse

Much like a bartender trained to blend together enough ingredients to form an ideal cocktail that will both entice patrons yet keep them sober and thirsty enough to come back for more, corporate news television producers have now become near tastemakers. Sifting through various ingredients such as spin and damage control to mix their nightly product-- namely a sound byte heavy drink of selective reality-- these clip-tenders tease us with vague explanations and half-truths so that we’re left thoroughly confused, slightly intoxicated by the concoction and given a false sense of what’s really going on, similar to a cocktail buzz.

Therefore it’s no surprise in the calm light of the following morning that-- instead of a hangover-- news junkies such as myself find ourselves wondering just what the headlines will say next. All the while, we realize that-- in trying to distract us from tragedy with clever graphics instead of paper umbrellas, slices of lime and olives in covering the devastating war in Iraq and especially its overwhelming casualties-- the true lead gets drowned, watered down and poured into the large decorative glass not for martinis but of our television screens.

Not only are our soldiers faced with unspeakable casualties and significant disabilities, as writer/director James C. Strouse asserts in a DVD interview for his feature length filmmaking debut Grace is Gone, for every soldier who is killed overseas, generations are affected as the lives of any number of the soldier’s survivors from tens to hundreds are forever altered. We will never fully be able to calculate the damage done to the American psyche from the horrors of war but just like my generation recalls with our relatives who served in Vietnam as we now find ourselves called to duty in two war-torn countries, the battle continues to be fought back here in the states in the hearts and minds of families, friends, lovers, neighbors, and classmates, consistently ignored by the media in favor of salacious scandals, political infighting, and lurid crimes.

As a father and wanting to somehow translate his perspective on that role onscreen, Strouse penned the unique character driven anti-war film Grace is Gone. Originally attached to director Rob Reiner who dropped out for unspecified reasons (IMDb), in a rather fortunate twist of fate, Strouse took over to helm it, bringing only his second screenplay (after Lonesome Jim, directed by Steve Buscemi) to cinematic life, courtesy of the tremendous support he gained in producer and star John Cusack along with The Weinstein Company and Clint Eastwood who lent his talent by composing the bittersweet, heartbreaking, and breathtakingly nuanced musical score, which is easily Eastwood’s most effective since Million Dollar Baby.

The usually hyper, highly verbal Cusack we’ve come to know and love in Say Anything and High Fidelity turns in one of his finest and most understated, subtle performances as a right wing, strict, conservative Minnesota father of two young daughters (played by the talented Shelan O’Keefe and Gracie Bednarczyk) who learns early on into the film that his army sergeant wife has been killed while serving her country in Iraq.

Unable to bring himself to face reality or tell neither his twelve and a half nor eight year old girl, Cusack’s Stanley Philipps makes an impulsive decision to grant the wish of his youngest daughter Dawn (Bednarczyk) to travel to the Disney World like Enchanted Gardens Theme Park.

Skipping out on his job as a manager at a Home Store that he seems to run as though it were the military he fervently loves for which he still seems bitter about not being able to serve, Stanley and the girls leave without luggage or preparation, as he tries to outrun his problems, stopping every so often to phone home, longing to hear his deceased wife’s voice and also try and speak with her again one last time.

While admittedly, one knows going in that the film is going to be unspeakably sad, it’s a riveting road film and a meaningful study of fatherhood as Stanley along with the audience begins to realize, similar to Strouse’s intention, that heroes come in all types and we can all be heroic on a different scale. Clocking in at just eighty-five minutes, the most frequently discussed detraction among critics and viewers was that given the film’s title and inevitability that Stanley will have to share with the girls what happened to their mother, is that the film seems to lack an arc and doesn’t offer its audience much in the way of a dynamic plot.

However, it’s a poetic decision by Strouse to trust his own work and its authenticity as a character piece and one that invites introspection, not to overload it with filmmaking-by-the-numbers plot points or unbelievable quirky characters thrown in for our amusement similar to the decorative ingredients mixed into the evening news or shaken into a drink. No, it’s Stanley’s story first and foremost and by extension the coming-of-age and loss-of-innocence of his wide-eyed daughters including the lonely Dawn and wise-beyond-her-years Heidi (played phenomenally by O’Keefe) that manages to keep us invested, all the while breaking our hearts with nothing watered down, nothing drowned in sound bytes-- the lead right where it’s supposed to be-- right in front of our eyes instead of buried beneath the distractions.

My Blueberry Nights

Director: Wong Kar Wai

As Fabienne tells Butch in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, “Any time of the day is a good time for pie.” This is especially true when one is nursing a broken heart and in the first English language film from director Wong Kar Wai (one of Tarantino’s favorite directors), while love sick alcoholic police officer David Strathairn opts for shots and Otis Redding’s "Try a Little Tenderness" in a Memphis bar, beautiful singer Norah Jones decides on pie in New York with Jude Law in My Blueberry Nights. Gee, no offense to Redding and Strathairn but that seems like a no-brainer to this filmgoer as well, although like Ms. Jones and Mr. Kar Wai (IMDb), I’m not one for blueberry pie.

In her screen debut, Jones turns in a subtle, introspective and competent if admittedly unchallenging performance as Elizabeth, who, heartsick from her badly ended love affair with an unfaithful boyfriend, begins returning to the diner where she not only learned of the infidelity through the loyal owner Jeremy (Law) but also has offered up her keys as the latest set to fill his cookie jar of failed romance. Jeremy, who serves as the genial but unlikely go between for bitter exes, is all too familiar with Elizabeth’s story as his keys were one of the first ones dropped into that sad jar and while nobody ever seems to come back for the keys, Jeremy says that like the untouched, uncut dish of blueberry pie at the end of the night forsaken in favor of cheesecake, he likes to keep the keys and the pie there just in case. Relating to the tale and in need of distraction, Elizabeth’s ritual of coming in for pie ends in a gorgeous succession of shots with an obvious fairy tale homage as Jeremy leans over and upside down, manages to kiss the remaining traces of pie from the lips of the sleeping, heartbroken Elizabeth before she vanishes to Tennessee to get as many miles as she can away from her bad memories of the end of love.

However something unspoken has passed between those pie filled nights and tender conversation, and she continually sends Jeremy postcards and letters from her new life, working two jobs as a waitress in a greasy spoon diner and a bar, both of which are the daily haunts of Strathairn’s Arnie Copeland. Unable to divorce the unfaithful, much younger wife (Rachel Weisz) from whom he’s separated but still madly in love with, Arnie makes a promise every night that he’ll quit drinking, piling his one day AA chips on the bar, but with every time the jukebox record drops Otis Redding’s "Try a Little Tenderness" and Weisz saunters in, that resolution is helplessly abandoned.

After a tragic middle section, the episodic My Blueberry Nights moves out west to the tale of lady gambler Leslie (Natalie Portman) as she and Elizabeth become a mild Thelma and Louise until life catches up with them both. While Leslie’s story seems like an odd fit with the lovesick tales of woe, it does also concern a nonromantic heartbreak and serves as a nice release for audiences who were squirming in their seats, unfamiliar with the slow Kar Wai pacing and obsessions with the ends of affairs.

A Kar Wai fan since Chungking Express who still considers In the Mood for Love to be one of the most romantic films ever made, I was bitterly disappointed by the overly ambitious mess of 2046 that was so awful, it made my loyal film professor and movie going sidekick swear off Kar Wai and decide he would be the one to choose the next several films. And while My Blueberry Nights isn’t in the same league as Chungking or Mood, it’s still intoxicatingly sensual and filled with performers who instinctively feel at ease in Kar Wai’s gorgeous, impressionistic, and unabashedly romantic universe. And hopefully it will make filmgoers not only reach for the nearest slice of pie but hit the shelves of their local movie stores looking for the director’s best.

Note: For an in-depth analysis of In the Mood for Love alongside one of the films it influenced, Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, click here for my article.

Great World of Sound

Director:
Craig Zobel

“Just because it’s a lie, it doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea,” Clarence (Kene Holliday) explains to his record company associate Martin (Pat Healy) while trying to justify feigning snapping photos on a lens-free cell phone, reasoning that it helps to boost confidence while closing deals in director Craig Zobel’s wholly original Great World of Sound.

Of course it’s this kind of thinking that has caused the men, obviously lacking in the field of logic (unless they’re just accustomed to blind, naïve trust), to accept jobs with the shady Great World of Sound which has just relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina from Chicago. Why the move was made, it’s not immediately known but when Martin turns up for the job interview and finds his would be employers in the midst of cardboard boxes, surprisingly it’s his background that comes into question as the interviewer criticizes the number of moves on his resume that had found Martin moving from various cities for work in his field.

To the higher ups at Great World of Sound, constant motion is an indication of laziness yet there’s something about Martin, perhaps in his willingness to go along with whatever they tell him, that inspires them to give the man a chance and wouldn’t you know, soon they’re calling on his fondness for constant motion in sending him out on the road scouring for new musical talent.

Working with the more dynamic salesman Clarence, also newly hired as a producer, the two men learn that instead of trying to weed through the auditioning masses for viable talent, they have to think of Great World of Sound like an all-encompassing university and it’s their job to sign as many musicians as they can, all the while knowing that most will not “graduate.”

Faster than you can say “something’s rotten in Charlotte,” they’re told that due to the intricacies of CD production and recording costs, they have to request payment from the musicians as a sign of good faith. While $3,000 is the target number that the “financial contributions” Great World of Sound tries to solicit from would-be artists, Martin and Clarence quickly become the best salesman-- or I mean producers-- when they realize that quantity counts and begin taking payments in the hundreds.

“You really think that’s all there is to producing?” Martin questions near the beginning of their new career and while any viewer with half a brain realizes that they’re working for a con operation, it’s amazing the length of time and amount of justification the two main characters need to realize the exact same thing.

Zobel’s film, which was written by the director and George Smith, played at both the Sundance and South by Southwest Film Festivals and after earning Zobel a Gotham Breakthrough Director Award, garnered two Independent Spirit nominations in the categories of Best First Feature and Best Supporting Male (Holliday). Despite its admittedly repetitive nature and dubiously dim “heroes” as the characters try to sign every new auditioning artist, Great World of Sound profits from an undeniably clever and unmerciful script. In addition, the humor that is heightened by the actors who, unlike their characters, fight the urge to “sell” their jokes and make the film a parody by instead playing it straight, making Great World of Sound feel far more compelling and frighteningly authentic than a typical night of American Idol.

Americano

Director: Kevin Noland

In their decision to-- as one character surmises-- rethink whatever it is they think they thought by escaping the realities of student loans, the 9-5 grind, and obligations, three friends head to Spain for one last adventure following college graduation.

Hoping to participate in the Fiesta de San Fermin a.k.a. the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, Ryan (Timm Sharp), his girlfriend Michelle (Ruthanna Hopper), and their unofficial leader Chris (Joshua Jackson) find themselves all uniquely affected by their surprising foreign experiences and the intriguing characters they meet along the way such as a strange, Beat styled philosophizing club owner Riccardo (Ruthanna’s father Dennis Hopper) who advises Chris not to “fall for the con—the Ameri-con.”

Coming to grips with, as Ryan explains, the old adage that if you really want to get to know someone better, travel with them, his relationship with Michelle becomes strained both by his yearning for home and his preference to zone out with Vicodin and keep everything at an arm’s length. While those two seem to be nearing the conclusion of their relationship, artistic Chris, whose backpack is stolen at the start of the film, realizes that instead of material belongings, he’s discovered bliss in the simple, unhurried practice of wandering around, scribbling and sketching in his journal.

His love for his new way of life is infinitely deepened when he meets the gorgeous, aggressively confident and I daresay nearly macho fly-fishing actress Adela (Leonor Varela). Drawn to her insistence that bullfights are sensuous dances wherein the matador adorns feminine clothing to look as beautiful as possible before seducing and killing the bull, Chris finds himself seduced by her own tantalizing dance-like conversation and the two embark on a tentative friendship with developing flirtation as the film continues.

Despite too much screen time devoted to a highly bizarre and off-putting Dennis Hopper whose aimless character runs a club (aptly named Americano) which seems to be a twisted version of Moulin Rouge,the film Americano is an engaging and charming sleeper. Admittedly Hemingway purists will find the film’s frequent parallels to the author and his masterwork The Sun Also Rises wearing on their nerves rather quickly, yet writer/director Kevin Noland’s breathtakingly photographed and engaging 2005 film festival favorite (which was screened in Palm Springs, Seattle, Austin, Los Angeles, Vail, Milan, and Newport Beach) is well worth the investment.

Slingshot

Director:
Jay Alaimo

The film begins with a flash forward and a flashback—both of which are comprised of the same situation—two males and one female in a standoff where one male has a weapon. In the past, young Ash is armed with a slingshot and in the future, he’s grown into David Arquette aiming a gun while his best friend Taylor (Balthazar Getty) and Taylor's girlfriend April (Thora Birch) try to get him to calm down. In the past, the young girl tells Taylor she doesn’t know why he hangs out with Ash and the same is true of the future scene which opens and closes Slingshot via a circular narrative.

Moving backwards in time to a more recent start, we become better acquainted with the two friends who’ve been as close as brothers since childhood while they mature into adult punks concocting a new scam consists of seducing bored, neglected Connecticut hockey moms and then once granted access to their homes, raiding their jewelry boxes and robbing them blind.

Things become complicated when Taylor meets April after she accidentally gives him the signal created by her mother-- his sexy and a bit too willing mark Karen (Julianna Marguiles) who has a habit of leaving her light on when her husband’s away. Shortly after speaking to Karen's daughter April, Taylor realizes that he wants to evolve from his petty ways with Ash by escaping the suburb she calls “a mundane lockdown” with April.

April, the film’s most unconvincing and poorly written character that leaves Birch with the unenviable task of trying to fill in the many blanks in portraying a woman not even given one eighth of the consideration by the screenwriter as the men, results in one of her most disappointing performances. In addition, the film suffers in its inconsistent third act which is bogged down by an unclear tone and overwhelmingly awkward melding of “a moody character piece, class-crossed romance, repressed homoerotic thrilled and stalled road movie” (Ronnie Sheib, Variety). Lacking emotional involvement and instead inspiring indifference as it tries to be all things to all viewers, Slingshot boasts great turns by Getty and Arquette and an opening that indicated it had enormous potential but ultimately failed to provide anything new or fresh to the overpopulated independent petty con artist subgenre.