DVD Review: The Captive (2014)

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Meditations on loss both literal and figurative, the haunting yet humanistic films of Academy Award nominated writer-director Atom Egoyan are hard to shake.

As an audience of Alices ― in each puzzle-like picture we tumble through the rabbit hole ― landing headfirst in a contemporary but illusive Egoyan wonderland where we're quick to discover that nothing is as it seems.

Illuminating if ultimately unsettling, from The Sweet Hereafter to Felicia's Journey and beyond, Egoyan has spent his career holding up a microscope to the dangers that exist just below the surface of a world where smiles hide secrets and (much like objects in the rearview mirror) evil may be closer than it appears.

As the years go by, in Egoyan's latest aptly named effort The Captive, a heartbroken father played by Ryan Reynolds finds himself unable to look ahead ― literally and figuratively trapped in the past ― after discovering with a glance in his rearview that his nine year old daughter had vanished from sight.

Moving back and forth from past to present and in point-of-view, The Captive's maze-like narrative approach initially infuriates more than it fascinates.

Requiring us to figure out where each piece fits along the timeline while we struggle to process each scene ― we're introduced to multiple parties held captive by the same horrific moment, beginning with the kidnapped girl (who’s now an adult) as well as her captor who for years has been hiding in plain sight of both her parents and the police.

With this in mind it's no wonder that when the film screened at the Cannes Film Festival for its Palme d'Or qualifying showing, Egoyan's opus appeared under a title that emphasized the plural nature of its theme (as Un Captives) to better illustrate the grief of all involved.

Yet while it works either way, the singular name change suits the film well in not only ratcheting up the tension and immediacy but also by encouraging greater critical thinking on the part of the audience as we evaluate each captive one by one.

As a modern disciple of Hitchcock whose experimentation with the role of the viewer as voyeur has overwhelmed the Egyptian-born Canadian filmmaker's work since his American arthouse crossover hit Exotica roughly twenty years ago, Egoyan is clever enough to understand that in suspenseful storytelling, the true power comes from what isn't shown vs. what is visualized.

And this is especially imperative given the delicate subject matter of Captive which, to both the film as well as Egoyan's credit, feels far less exploitative than a typical episode of network television police procedural series.

Revisiting the same terrain he's explored throughout his undeniably eerie oeuvre including the complex and at times codependent relationship of good and evil that varies considerably from one film to the next, Captive plays particularly well as a thematic companion piece to Felicia's Journey.

While both films feel like updates on age-old fairy tales – echoing everything from Little Red Riding Hood to Hansel and Gretel to the aforementioned allusions to Alice in Wonderland, this time around he uses the cinematic looking glass to examine the role that storytelling plays on its own accord.

Trading in twisted role-play and dark storytelling on the deep web, we learn how a narrative can mean different things to different people.

However, unlike the way that the titular Felicia's Journey was placed in the hands of someone else, The Captive shows us in a variety of ways how words can keep not only hope but people alive as two of its characters make the choice to use the power of their stories to rescue themselves, whether or not they're in control in their current state.

A stronger execution of the same argument that he attempted to make in Chloe, although it’s structurally still something of a mess, The Captive grows bolder and more confident with time, resulting in one of Egoyan's most thrilling climaxes in years.

Nonetheless, the inclusion of an alternate ending on the newly released Lionsgate DVD makes you wish that he would've struck a greater balance between the two separate conclusions in order to give viewers a stronger sense of closure regarding one key subplot in particular.

Bolstered by its script as well as stellar support from Ryan Reynolds in an uncharacteristically serious turn ― despite its shortcomings, the film reminds viewers once again just how criminally underutilized he is in traditional leading man roles.

Intelligently crafted and undeniably suspenseful, like all of Egoyan's work, The Captive will linger in the mind for days.

   

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.

Movie Review: October Gale (2014)

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An actress of great emotional depth and tremendous skill – over the past twenty years, Patricia Clarkson has honed her skills as a humanistic mathematician.

As such, she's made a career out of transforming even the most blandly underwritten one-dimensional characters on the page into fully realized three-dimensional individuals on the screen.

And given her propensity for navigating the rough terrain of heartbreak and misfortune as well as her innate understanding of the inner workings of the women she brings to life, we often see Clarkson in the role of head matriarch as the figurative captain of a ship she's trying to get back on course following a tragedy.

She does this once again in IFC's October Gale, which marks her second collaboration with her Cairo Time writer-director Ruba Nadda.

Therefore it's only fitting that the role of Helen, a recently widowed physician still mourning the death of her beloved husband, seems tailor-made for the star.

Yet by giving Clarkson her long awaited opportunity to play an ordinary woman turned action hero –due to extraordinary circumstances – Nadda raised the stakes for the actress and Gale to levels reminiscent of The River Wild and Dead Calm.

And once the plot starts to build after a clumsily edited, slow-moving, flashback soaked first act, the result is a mostly successful character driven thriller.

Set on a Canadian island, Gale finds the mild-mannered Helen fighting for her life after giving emergency first aid to a gunshot victim embodied by Scott Speedman's handsome stranger.

Soon stranded at the cabin by someone she thought she knew, when the man who shot Speedman's Will comes back to finish the job, Helen is forced to confront not only the harsh elements of the Canadian wild but also question just who exactly she can trust.

Although the pace quickens along with the peril, the overwhelming amount of bittersweet flashbacks (showcasing Helen and her husband in happier times) threatens to ground Gale to a halt before it even gets going.

Making the first half feel nearly twice as long– along with a sharper edit and tighter script, October Gale would've benefitted from a dual plotline – building greater momentum by introducing Will's storyline earlier on given both its complexity as well as the undeniably riveting nature of his character's own flashbacks.

Admittedly skirting the edges of romantic storytelling stereotypes and pushing the limits of logic a few times as Speedman's sensitive, classic literature loving "bad boy" Will goes from at-risk to Action Jackson a bit too quickly, the shortcomings in Nadda's ambitious Gothic tinged thriller are easily forgiven due to its overall genre novelty.

Buoyed by its core ensemble cast including a brief but effective cameo late in the film from Tim Roth, Gale is a flawed yet worthwhile work of moody Saturday night movie suspense that celebrates brains over brawn in its penultimate sequence.

A real world thriller anchored by a real woman instead of a Lara Croft or Wonder Woman type, the vital message of self-reliance, independence, and empowerment at any age provides this action movie with a role worthy of Clarkson, who visibly relishes showing us the kickass side of her usual melodrama-prone matriarch.
   

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: Barefoot (2014)

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Evan Rachel Wood has long been drawn to tales of unlikely friendships and unusual bonds that develop between people who are brought together by their eccentricities (which have run the gamut from quirky to downright certifiable) in her prolific, impressively diverse career.

Typically opting for one of two character arcs, Wood’s oeuvre often finds her either portraying those at a mental, emotional or psychological crossroads or those guiding someone else through the same metaphorical journey through the course of a film.

From her earliest breakthroughs in Digging to China and Thirteen all the way up through King of California, Running With Scissors, Down in the Valley and The Life Before Her Eyes, Wood’s fearless nature along with her unwavering commitment to each character that she loses her own identity as a celebrity while playing makes her one of the most underrated character actresses of her generation.

Able to strengthen flawed material like Justin Long’s affable but admittedly protracted A Case of You with her chameleon-like knack for making you instinctively buy into whatever role she’s taking on, Wood followed up her Kate Hudson-like hippie waif in Long’s Rom-Com Case with another role that, if played by someone less talented, could’ve become easily stereotypical female date movie bait. Yet because Wood is so genuine as Barefoot’s guileless wallflower Daisy, she makes the film’s formula feel much fresher than you might’ve imagined.

Cast as an innocent young woman (which Meryl Streep once said is the hardest thing to play believably) who’s been sheltered indoors her entire life by a mentally ill parent, after her parent passes away offscreen, Daisy is sent reeling; unable to cope with life outside on her own.

A fish out of water regardless of the situation, when Daisy is placed in a mental institution due to her odd behavior, she takes the first opportunity she has to leave by following Scott Speedman’s down-on-his-luck janitor Jay out the door after he rescues her from a dicey situation.

Offering her a few dollars for shoes despite her proclamation that she’d rather go barefoot, Jay realizes that he can’t just leave the far too trusting Nick at Nite educated, earnest young woman alone to fend for herself in the middle of Los Angeles.

The first decent thing his cad-like character has done up to this point in the film (after saving her from harm, of course) – in debt up to his eyeballs and worried about losing his job which would send the gambling law-breaker to jail, Jay decides to violate his parole in a preemptive strike for what he believes will be the greater good.

Bringing Daisy along with him, Jay sets off for his brother’s wedding down south where he hopes he’ll find his dad (Treat Williams) in a good enough mood to pay off his debt.

Recalling tonally similar screwball inspired romantic comedy movies in the same traveling to a family event and/or destination wedding vein a la the Sandra Bullock genre films Forces of Nature and The Proposal, it’s here where you might say, “wait a minute, I’ve seen this film before.”

Yet whereas most titles would’ve followed the same Bullock movie lead – spending the rest of the running time at the main destination location with most of the action set at the wedding itself, Barefoot decides to use its admittedly short 89 minute length wisely by bringing you something old and something new instead.

Part road movie and part ensemble Rom-Com, Barefoot checks some of the requisite genre boxes including a makeover scene plus charming the future in-laws along with a close call with the authorities (including a cartoonish car chase). But it's much more than simply formulaic as it continues.

Working from a script by Stephen Zotonowski, filmmaker Andrew Fleming laces the laughter with a surprising amount of sweetness combined with sensitive touches that never ridicule the mentally ill characters that Jay considers his only real friends.

Admittedly initially Speedman’s characterization seems slightly disingenuous as it’s hard to imagine the man the film initially establishes as a selfish jerk putting a stranger's needs before his own (especially since they’d just met) but he grows more complex as their relationship builds.

Likewise, the positive message of the film (that’s never laid on too thick) as well as the ample chemistry between the two leads helps you overlook some of its logical inconsistencies.

While not as laugh-out-loud funny as you would assume given the screwball approach, the tone employed by Nancy Drew, Dick and The Craft helmer Fleming is as serious as it is silly.

Frequently bittersweet as if Preston Sturges had been the one to write and direct Holiday with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant rather than George Cukor and blended it with a few of the scenes from Sullivan’s Travels and The Palm Beach Story, Fleming punctuates Barefoot's melancholy moments while making you laugh at the same time in a decidedly Sturges-like manner.

A terrific blend of old and new that despite a clumsy beginning a contrived finale is highly recommended for a rainy evening in thanks to the always effervescent Evan Rachel Wood, Barefoot plays especially well as the contemporary half of a genre double feature when paired with a classic screwball romantic comedy from the past.

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.