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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Bonneville

Director: Christopher N. Rowley

It’s become a near prerequisite for female bonding movies or, to use man’s favorite term that still makes me squeamish—chick flicks-- to include one or more of the following: a) the word sisterhood in the title; b) unlikely bonding between the obligatory straight-laced friend and the obligatory flirtatious or promiscuous rebel; c) flashbacks from childhood where the women pledged they would remain BFFs for all eternity; d) dysfunction reigns supreme either in the form of abuse, marital infidelity, medical drama, or parental issues; e) it’s unbearably depressing; f) utilizes a heavy “you go girl” styled soundtrack of 60’s and 70’s female empowerment hits that have now become the theme songs of drag queens; g) there’s an overly sensitive, sexless and nearly neutered Prince Charming who not only looks amazing shirtless but says all the right things at all the right times to compensate for the Neanderthals they’ve met in the past; and lastly h) it involves a journey of some kind-- usually in the form of a road trip-- which we all know is a motif for the women to “cut loose, kick off… [their] Sunday shoes,” and get Footloose while rediscovering their true selves.

And frankly, it’s a tragedy in not only unleashing horrifically bad films on the public but even more so in perpetuating sexist stereotypes on the teenage boys who purchase tickets to the latest video game turned into a movie as well as a predominantly male profession of journalists whose scathing reviews will no doubt-- even if they’re completely justified-- not only keep people away but prevent Hollywood from trying to create more films for the demographic… and dare I say help shape future media coverage about us when we do something out of the “norm” like perhaps run for presidential office. Oh, but we won't go there!

Yet, even as a woman who—more than anything—wants to encourage more films made for our gender, it’s an appalling fact that the ones we’re peddled usually condescend with several of the aforementioned criteria and so the vicious cycle continues and instead of a modern day equivalent of All About Eve or Gone With the Wind, we get Paris Hilton in The Hottie or the Nottie and Mandy Moore in Because I Said So.

With this in mind, after I saw the previews for the latest female bonding picture, Bonneville, starring Academy Award winners and nominees Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Joan Allen, I began bracing myself for the worst. First a confession-- I’m a great fan of all three actresses, (especially the underrated Joan Allen whose chameleon like ability never ceases to amaze), and I applauded the moxie to produce a film starring a trio of women over the age of fifty. However, the fact that the trailer featured: the three jumping on a bed like giggling schoolgirls, one remaining like a prim schoolmarm while the other acts flirtatious in trying to meet cute with a Prince Charming, and taking a lengthy road trip to face a dysfunctional relative after a depressing event seemed to solidify every cliché in the genre book... yet I found myself pleasantly surprised by this predictable but innocuous and heartwarming little sleeper just released on DVD.

The film, which begins in Pocatello, Idaho, opens as the beautiful, recently widowed Arvilla (Jessica Lange) tries to come to grips with the death of her much older, adventuring, best-selling author husband. Although she’d been his wife for twenty years, her goodhearted yet absentminded husband Joe was so consumed with living life to the fullest that he neglected to create a new will explaining not only his wish to be cremated and have his ashes scattered but also to leave the house to his beloved wife. When Joe’s bitter, defensive daughter Francine (a wicked Christine Baranski) arrives to contest her father’s undocumented wishes, she blackmails her stepmother by giving her a week to deliver Joe’s ashes to her in Montecito, California where she intends to bury him next to his first wife or else she will kick Arvilla out of the home Francine has now inherited.

Still reeling from the untimely death of her mate, not to mention the threat of homelessness lingering in her mind, Arvilla decides she will hand-deliver Joe to Francine herself and her two best friends--the strict but kind, perpetual reader of The Book of Mormon, Carol (Joan Allen) and the rebellious Margene who breaks Mormon rule and indulges in coffee, decide they will go along with their friend, feeling that there’s no time like the present to have a girl’s vacation.

Deciding to take Joe’s gorgeous blue, vintage Bonneville out for a spin for the first time in her life, Arvilla picks up her friends and after a few mishaps including a flat tire and several detours, makes the impulsive decision to skip the flight and make it up to Montecito by car, with her loyal friends by her side. Predictably, they encounter memorable eccentrics along the way such as a young, beautiful hippie born decades too late played by Victor Rasuk (Adrift in Manhattan) who rescues them in the Salt Flats and then gives them his MP3 player in exchange for a ride, along with big-rig driving Tom Skerritt who catches Margene’s eye and interest, yet when the time comes wherein he actually ask the ladies to dinner, she’s the most hesitant one—revealing the truism for not only Margene but most women that it’s far easier to fantasize than actualize-- until with a little prompting she opens herself up to the possibility of love.

Filled with sumptuous cinematography of the majestic American southwest that’s worth the price of the DVD rental alone, although the film hits one contrived plot-point after another and anyone who has seen even a few female bonding classics know precisely what will happen next, the actresses seem to genuinely engage one another in ways that make what may have been one-dimensional roles seem far more real than the less than inspired writing.

In fact, it’s on their capable shoulders that Bonneville rests and I’m sure I don’t have to assure you that when you have Bates and Allen navigating with Lange in the driver’s seat, even if you hit some potentially rough traffic and annoying road construction along the way, you’re guaranteed a mostly smooth and entertaining trip, if you can face your fear from enough bad female journey pictures of the past to give the likable, mild Bonneville a spin.