Vera Drake

Mike Leigh's 2004 effort, Vera Drake, is sure to be controversial, but not for the reasons you might expect. rather than shock value (and the blood and guts of franchises such as Saw and Hostel,) Vera Drake takes a hot-button topic and looks at it it from a much-maligned perspective. It may cause you discomfort or make you angry, but it's hard to deny that the film is well made.

The eponymous Vera is a jolly 1950's housewife who lives in post-war Britain and works cleaning other people's homes. She is the proud mother to two adult children, sarcastic Sid (Daniel Mays) and excruciatingly shy Ethel (Alex Kelly) and wants to find a eligible bachelor for her isolated daughter. She is happily married to moustached mechanic George (Richard Graham).

In secret, Vera is an abortionist, terminating women's pregnancies for no pay. She uses the same soothing rhetoric for every incident and is not once caught. The procedure is relatively clean and safe, and as far as she is concerned she does no wrong. I didn't always like Vera. She was blind to the implications of her acts, cheery to a fault. Yet she always tries to do the right thing. I think something horrible happened in her past, but it was never fully explained. Yet, life goes on.

Vera and George find a possible "eligible bachelor," Reg (Eddie Marsan) an introvert highly affected by the war. Vera continues her operations, with women who have been put into contact with her by Lily (Ruth Sheen) who has untrustworthy motives. But when a near tragedy occurs, Vera is put out in the open and ages ten years in a strenuous couple of days.

Possibly more interesting than Vera are her kids, Ethel and Sid. Ethel holds herself hunched and quiet, with zero self-esteem. She meets her match in Reg, who seems as unsure of the courtship as she is. I wasn't quite sure where their relationship would go. Sid and his friend Ronny (Leo Bill) discuss post war issues and try to score a dance at a party, and Sid is the one to reasonably question his mother when the doody hits the fan. The film has a strong sense of place. A rape scene occurs, and it is handled tastefully (as tastefully as a rape can be), Imelda Staunton gives a great performance, going from a cheery confident woman to a slumped person who can barely drag her feet across the floor.

Vera is not a liberal Wonder Woman, a superhero who keeps her powers of cheerful strength no matter what. She is vulnerable and fallible, and she can be and will be broken. But somehow, I wasn't as involved, the second time I watched it, as I could have been. I think the director was pushing me too hard with the tragedy of it all, with what a great person Vera is. That never helps. You've got to hand it to Sid, though. With everyone else referring to the operations as taking care of "trouble" and "problems," Sid offers the first humanizing word: "babies."

El Bola (Pellet)

Shortly into El Bola, the twelve-year-old protagonist overhears a woman at his family's shop tell his father that 'if we were Pablo's age, we wouldn't have any problems.' If only that were true. Not only is that false on general terms (cartoonist Bill Watterson on said that "People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children,") but Pablo is living with an unbearable load for anyone, in a household where breathing could get one beaten.

El Bolais a full-blooded film about child abuse, yet lacking cheap shock value (Joan Crawford smudged with face cream, screaming "NO WIRE HANGERS!" while her little daughter cowers, comes to mind.) Instead of a larger than life (not to say over the top) performance as the crazy parent that wins a Razzle, this movie concentrates on the children affected, nay, not only that, but directs them well, which is hard to do.

Sad-eyed Juan José Ballesta, as Pablo, is the emotional center of the film. Pablo calls himself 'pellet,' named after a little ball he keeps for luck, which doesn't seem to do him much good. He harbors an almost doglike desire for a close friend, not the group of kids he plays a dangerous game on the train tracks with, further jeopardizing his safety, This security is found with Alfredo, the rough-around-the-edges son of a tattooist, who doesn't take to him at first when he finds his pleas for friendship desperate-bordering-on-the-creepy. They bond a little quickly at an amusement park, but it takes us to the main conflict in the film, which is when Pablo's sadistic pop Mariano finds his aloneness threatened, and tries to drive other people out of his life

Alfredo's family's a wonder, to a kid who has never known a homelife without violence and painful punishment. A Liberal, playful bunch, they talk about just about anything and joke and laugh at the dinner table, a far cry from Pablo's family, with his mother yelling at his incontinent grandmother and his father constantly comparing Pablo to their other son who died in a car crash. But Alfredo's life is far from perfect. His father has a temper as well. His gay godfather is dying from AIDS, and he isn't allowed to see him due to the state he's in.

The amazing thing about this film, which won the Spanish Academy Awards, and the child actors who have chosen to work in it, is the naturalness. The kids are not dumbed down, nor made into pretentious little douches who must read the dictionary every night before bed. They're living, breathing, thinkinghumans (I'll leave the thinking part in underline, for future filmmakers to pay close attention to. They talk about death, about sickness, about food and phallic tattoos (Can you get one? I don't know, and I suspect they don't either.) The dialogue seemed rarely scripted, and very natural.

So what? I won't give a four-star rating, because, well, the character development isn't quite strong enough, but it's certainly a impressive debut with kids, who, now that they're grown, are on the way to becoming great actors. It's very much worth watching. The question is, are you up for it? (Rated NR. Although it is rather perversely catagorized as a 'father-son children & family movie' on Netflix, it is definitely not for kids.)

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Me and Orson Welles

You needn't know much about Orson Welles to see (or like) this movie. Nor do you need to devour Shakespeare. As an unsophisticated and non-well-read viewer, I found Me & Orson Wellesto be an enjoyable and unpretentious period piece, by Richard Linklater, the director of the also enjoyable, unpretentious, but more comically oriented The School Of Rock. But now, instead of the manic Jack Black, Linklater has cast Zac Efron in the lead, a controversial decision considering many non-twelve-year-old girls consider him a pretty boy unfit for anything past High School Musical. But don't worry, the guy doesn't seem limited to teenybopper franchises, and he does fine here, in a film he rather self-importantly deemed the first of his roles he was actually interested in.

He is backed up by virtual unknown Christian McKay, Eddie Marsan, and talented but typecast Leo Bill, who is forever willing to play the nerd, misfit, psychotic, or pervert. Efron plays Richard Samuels, an ambitious and slightly naive 'almost eighteen-year-old' living in new York City in 1937, who regularly skips school, much to the chagrin of his disgruntled mother, and gets a part in the Mercury Theater's production of "Julius Caesar" after publicly singing an awful song about cereal. Womanizer Joe Cotten (James Tupper) and womanizer-in-training Norman Lloyd (Leo Bill,) both of which have their minds on only one thing (and it's not theater) show him the ropes as well as Assistant Sonja (Claire Danes,) who Richard promptly develops a crush on.

The show revolves around keeping Orson happy, a self-obsessed terror set on his own talent. Richard won't be being paid. You must not argue. The actors laugh as a knee-jerk reaction at Orson's unfunny jokes. What does he earn for all this? "The chance to be sprayed by Orson's spit." Why does Richard keep the job at all? He has hope he can make it in the acting business. It's better than going to school. Sonja might be a big part of it. Norman and Joe classily comment that 'every man in the show wants to get into her pants,' then make a bet- the first one get five dollars. It is easy to guess that Sonja will be furious and broken-hearted that Richard made the bet, but it doesn't happen, which highlights the unexpected turns the movie takes.

The rest of the movie concentrates on the quirks of the cast and Orson's ego, as well as Richard's realization that whatever turn the show takes,he wants to be a 'part of it all.' This is well done, except for occasional bad line. For instance? "What's it like to be a beautiful woman?" Richard randomly asks Sonja. *Wince* What gutter did they pull that from? The only saving grace is that Sonja receives it as a bad line. Zac Efron starts out rather awkward in the first five minutes, delivering such off-kilter lines as 'you play with real feeling.' The heavily romanticized dialogue just doesn't feel natural, and it's a relief when the lines become smoother and wittier.

Christian McKay plays Orson Welles as perfectionistic, hard-headed, and childish. When he gets in a fight with his actors, he hollars at the top of his lungs, trademark spit spurting out of his mouth, "I am Orson Welles! And every single one of you stands as a adjinct to my vision!" Mm-kay... His unfailingly reasonable agent John Houseman (Eddie Marsan) tries to get through to him, but the bottem line is nothing that Orson Welles doesn't want to do will even be brought to the table. He is great character, and you see something sympathetic in him, then he throws you for a double loop. Me & Orson Welles is a historical film for people who don't have the time and patience for historical films, and establishes Zac Efron as an actor worthy of some respect (Rated PG-13.)

The Men Who Stare at Goats

At the beginning of The Men Who Stare At Goats, a confiding message beforehand says that 'more of this is true than you might think.' Maybe so, maybe not so much, but it's an entertaining black comedy, involving guns, drugs, and goats based on the also apparently true memoir of the same name by John Ronson. The film, given only lukewarm consideration by the critics, takes very near to awkward dives between lightness, very dark humor, and compassionate drama, turns out unscathed, if not exactly on top.

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor,) a journalist, is dumbstruck when his wife has a revelation over the fragility of life after the sudden death of a co-worker. Instead of taking an Eat, Pray, Love expedition, leaving her baffled husband to go to India and so on, she dumps him, apparently deciding life is too short to spend time in his company any longer. After a rather childish tantrum where he breaks dishes and yells at her and her one-armed boyfriend, Bob goes to equally childish lengths to impress her.

"I'm in Iraq, covering war stories," he says in a comfortable American hotel. "I've seen things you shouldn't. "Bang-bang-bang!" He kicks the head of the bed and exclaims, "I've got to go." He then decides that it would be best if he actually did some research there, forgetting just walking into a war-torn country with a camera is not worth it to win back a girl who's clearly gotten over him.

Then he meets Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney,) who's unlike anyone he's ever met- impulsive, smart, and completely convinced the minority he follows is in the right. Sound like somebody you know...? And he says he's a psychic spy, trained by the millitary to read thoughts, drive blind folded, and dissapate clouds with the power of his mind. Hmm.

This takes Bob back to meeting Gus Lacey (Stephen Root,) a member of the same group Lyn joined that he interviewed for a piece in the paper. Gus lives with his who-knows-how-old mother, who serves him drinks, and speaks of his military job in the New Earth Army whimsically. "We were trained to kill animals," he says. "With our minds, that is correct." Bob is shocked. He is serious, in that deadpan way Stephen Root is good at. Gus then shows Bob a video, to prove it, of himself telekinetically killing his pet hamster. What Bob sees is... the hamster acting wonky, yes, but hardly dying.

Lyn takes Bob on a sort of adventure (if you can call it that,) thanks in part to random fate and in part to Lyn's total belief in his psychic powers. Finally they find the New Earth Army base and meet stoned out Bill Jango (Jeff Bridges,) who ran the place for some time, and Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey,) who took over. Interspersed with the journey are flashbacks so you have met the characters before you actually met them.

In the end, The Men Who Stare at Goats (with it's abundance of deliberate quirky-isms) is not an epic achievement, but it is funny and witty, and though a streak of oh-so-dark humor pervades, admirably entertaining. In this day and age, I think we kind of need New Earth Warriors, who strive to 'fight without killing,' minus those poor goats. You'll see what I mean (Rated R.)

In the Bedroom

One of the most interesting things about Todd Field's In The Bedroom is the way it slowly unravels, not discharges with a bang, a downward spiral of grief and hopelessness. It is so easy to portray life as a utopia before tragedy strikes- in this, the said event reveals hidden repressions and resentments, and tears the lives of the victim's families apart. It is based on the short story The Killings by Andre Dubus, a former captain of the marine corps who eventually wrote about gun-related tragedies and the double sided nature of revenge. This film permeates vengeance- each time, some body gets hurt (or killed) and not a single person wins.

I see In The Bedroom tagged as 'melodrama' on Imdb. According to my film-based book 'melodrama' is 'bold and passionate drama, with distinct lines between good and evil' (not a direct quote.) Although the film is made up of victims, perpetrators, and passive bystanders, with a victim inevitable turning the tables on the perpetrator, it's anything but simple, armed with a certain ambiguity that sets it apart from the others. No one is selfless, and the dimwitted, impulsive killer, though not with much going for him, is not the typical unkillable Halloween psycho.

The film follows two families, the Fowlers and the Strouts, living in contemporary Maine, whose lives are going in very different directions.Matt Fowler (Tom Wilkinson) is a doctor, and is concerned about a job for his son Frank (Nick Stahl) that reaches his full potential. Frank is an affable young man whose ambiguous attitude towards his future are causing Matt and his wife Ruth (Sissy Spacek) some headaches. He is gifted at architecture, with elaborate drawn structures all over his walls, but he includes working on a boat catching lobsters

This is partially because he is unsure if he wants to be what his parents want him to be, partially because of Natalie Strout (Marisa Tomei,) an older woman and well-intentioned mother of two boys, who he has fallen for. Natalie has just suffered a violent break-up with Richard (William Mapother.) The is an implication that Richard has physically abused at least one of their two sons, Jason and Duncan, and Natalie wants out of that relationship.

One day Frank is beaten, and he comes home with black eye. He doesn't want to call the police, says Frank. It will just scare Natalie's boys. The next time Frank encounters Richard, the Fowler parents are thrown into a guilt-ridden nightmare that will strain, bend, and perhaps break them. Matt halfheartedly continues to participate in life, whereas Ruth sits quietly, almost comatose, smoking cigarettes on the chair. Ruth mistakenly confuses Matt's attempts to reacquaint himself with life with not grieving, and the event unearths discontentment and suspicions.

There are only a few faulty scenes One involves claustrophobic close-ups and buzzing sound effects seem to have come straight out of Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead, which served it's purpose of slightly surreal humor in the latter. Here it is odd and uncomfortable in a not remotely riveting way. The acting, on the other hand, is very good. The commendable performences and realistic rappor t between family members make one care about the characters and where the plot is going, which you know, thanks in part to me, is nowhere good (rated R)

Michael Clayton

It seems passivity is the enemy here, and there's enough of it to spare in Michael Clayton, a law thriller that uncoils gradually, and reveals suddenly. Everyone has the 'whoops' factor tied around their little finger, where nothing said or done has any connection to them. This includes the eponymous lead, played by George Clooney, who is loyal to his friends and practically useless to anyone else.

Michael is what is called a 'fixer,' which is a dodgy job description if I ever heard one, and of questionable legality. When someone messes up, their lawyer sends him in to manipulate, tweak, and shift the story in their favor. For instance, an upper class married man 'thinks' he hit someone with his car. Instead of coming to see the victim is okay, the driver (Mr. Greer) drives home and contacts his lawyer, who contacts Michael.

"What do they do if the car is stolen?" Mr. Greer reasons. "Happens all the time." Michael senses that he is in tpo deep then, so leaves the man to solve it for himself. He has more personal matters to attend to. The body (?) is never recovered, or maybe it's just a miffed drunk staggering home. It seems for these people, this is more plot point than climax.

In this case, Michael Clayton tries to find what Mr. Greer hit, but he is violently interrupted. Then the film is taken back four days, in a tangle of a story that seems like it will never be explained, but is. In the time before that incident, Michael is living his ordinary life of 'fixing' and pawning of his personal belongings, trying evade bankruptcy.

Then he gets a phone call, and is told that his friend and legendary fellow lawyer, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson,) has left his manic-depressive medication and gone bonkers. To be more specific, he stripped down during a law hearing and proclaimed his love for the plaintiff, the much younger Anna Kysersun, then chasing her and her company through the streets with inexplicable motivations.

Apparently that's not the worst part. While Arthur was shedding his attire in a fit of mania, he also had a moment of clarity- that he had the power to stop the evil that is been taken place, and as people probably suspected, that the cancer Anna and her family have been plagued by (which has already taken the life of her mother and brother) is in fact a direct result of U-North, a 'very safe' weed killer Clayton, Edens and others have been supporting.

U-North's weed killer, which is accompanied by green, reassuring advertisements, was used by Anna and many others on family farms, and got into their water streams. Worse for the corporation, Arthur doesn't only know what's going on, he has proof for it (a piece of paper showing that U-North knew, too) and has reached a quasi-midlife crisis where he's started questioning the morality of the stuff he's been doing for years.

Kenner, Back, & Ledeen (the law firm they work for) has funded U-North and they stand to lose a lot of money if the corporation comes crashing down. As good friends as Michael and Arthur are, Michael is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and can't afford to lose more, and his reaction is less 'it's not true' than 'we promised we wouldn't talk about it.'

Arthur, off his meds and with a perhaps not perennial sense of purpose, abandons Michael as a lost cause and enlists Anna's help to expose all the people who have been hurt with the pesticide (Anna is a real sport about Arthur's infatuation and clothes-shedding incident, though I couldn't tell if she really liked him or sensed she shouldn't be on his bad side.)

This makes him the not most popular person of U-North, and shady action against him by the nervous, twitch-ridden, and chilly Karen Crowder (the always chilly Tilda Swinton, who nevertheless seems mild-mannered enough for one one to think she knows less than she knows.) Michael Clayton does damage control, trying to to call Arthur into his right mind to support a deplorable lie.

The film is sort of brilliant the way it that it creates spontaneous, deliberately awkward dialogue that is usually nit picked and glossed over by the movie. At first, this promises to only be the norm with the Bipolar character, Arthur, but it soon spreads over into universal nervousness. of course, the characters have a lot to be nervous about. never has stumbly screenwriting and unnecessary 'uh's and 'er's impressed me more.

As with just about any film thriller, the script obscures truth from the characters, and their intellect suffers increasingly agitating pitfalls. Of course, the Arthur character has just escaped the numbing effects of his mood stabilizers and is 'feeling' the world for the first time in ages, so a little imprudence can be expected of such big adjustments.

However, the others, stressed as they might be, play aggravatingly dumb and don't provoke sympathy as often as a sharp "Really? Are you that stupid?" The performances are very good- nothing unusual from Tilda Swinton (she's playing her White Witch with a couple quirks.) George Clooney was just fine and doesn't need guff from people who think he just a ladies man with a self-important ego (maybe so, maybe not, but let's not judge, shall we?)

Tom Wilkinson strikes a balance between vulgar and vulnerable, and does well both feigning an American accent (he's British) and conducting his shallow, disorganized, and ridiculously fast speech, which gives the feeling he believes the oxygen is being pulled out of the air. And cliche is sidestepped when Michael's son Henry, a smart alecky and precocious kid, doesn't fall victim to 'child in trouble' script, and is at no point threatened, menaced and ransomed (Rated R.)

Note- This movie uses the fancy writing device of 'mentally ill person talking,' as Arthur carries on long monologues of what someone not playing with the full deck might say to fit the director's pretentious vision. As moviemaking is an art form and a little pretentiousness applies, this is neither a compliment or an insult, just a thought.

Michael Clayton

It seems passivity is the enemy here, and there's enough of it to spare in Michael Clayton, a law thriller that uncoils gradually, and reveals suddenly. Everyone has the 'whoops' factor tied around their little finger, where nothing said or done has any connection to them. This includes the eponymous lead, played by George Clooney, who is loyal to his friends and practically useless to anyone else.

Michael is what is called a 'fixer,' which is a dodgy job description if I ever heard one, and of questionable legality. When someone messes up, their lawyer sends him in to manipulate, tweak, and shift the story in their favor. For instance, an upper class married man 'thinks' he hit someone with his car. Instead of coming to see the victim is okay, the driver (Mr. Greer) drives home and contacts his lawyer, who contacts Michael.

"What do they do if the car is stolen?" Mr. Greer reasons. "Happens all the time." Michael senses that he is in tpo deep then, so leaves the man to solve it for himself. He has more personal matters to attend to. The body (?) is never recovered, or maybe it's just a miffed drunk staggering home. It seems for these people, this is more plot point than climax.

In this case, Michael Clayton tries to find what Mr. Greer hit, but he is violently interrupted. Then the film is taken back four days, in a tangle of a story that seems like it will never be explained, but is. In the time before that incident, Michael is living his ordinary life of 'fixing' and pawning of his personal belongings, trying evade bankruptcy.

Then he gets a phone call, and is told that his friend and legendary fellow lawyer, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson,) has left his manic-depressive medication and gone bonkers. To be more specific, he stripped down during a law hearing and proclaimed his love for the plaintiff, the much younger Anna Kysersun, then chasing her and her company through the streets with inexplicable motivations.

Apparently that's not the worst part. While Arthur was shedding his attire in a fit of mania, he also had a moment of clarity- that he had the power to stop the evil that is been taken place, and as people probably suspected, that the cancer Anna and her family have been plagued by (which has already taken the life of her mother and brother) is in fact a direct result of U-North, a 'very safe' weed killer Clayton, Edens and others have been supporting.

U-North's weed killer, which is accompanied by green, reassuring advertisements, was used by Anna and many others on family farms, and got into their water streams. Worse for the corporation, Arthur doesn't only know what's going on, he has proof for it (a piece of paper showing that U-North knew, too) and has reached a quasi-midlife crisis where he's started questioning the morality of the stuff he's been doing for years.

Kenner, Back, & Ledeen (the law firm they work for) has funded U-North and they stand to lose a lot of money if the corporation comes crashing down. As good friends as Michael and Arthur are, Michael is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and can't afford to lose more, and his reaction is less 'it's not true' than 'we promised we wouldn't talk about it.'

Arthur, off his meds and with a perhaps not perennial sense of purpose, abandons Michael as a lost cause and enlists Anna's help to expose all the people who have been hurt with the pesticide (Anna is a real sport about Arthur's infatuation and clothes-shedding incident, though I couldn't tell if she really liked him or sensed she shouldn't be on his bad side.)

This makes him the not most popular person of U-North, and shady action against him by the nervous, twitch-ridden, and chilly Karen Crowder (the always chilly Tilda Swinton, who nevertheless seems mild-mannered enough for one one to think she knows less than she knows.) Michael Clayton does damage control, trying to to call Arthur into his right mind to support a deplorable lie.

The film is sort of brilliant the way it that it creates spontaneous, deliberately awkward dialogue that is usually nit picked and glossed over by the movie. At first, this promises to only be the norm with the Bipolar character, Arthur, but it soon spreads over into universal nervousness. of course, the characters have a lot to be nervous about. never has stumbly screenwriting and unnecessary 'uh's and 'er's impressed me more.

As with just about any film thriller, the script obscures truth from the characters, and their intellect suffers increasingly agitating pitfalls. Of course, the Arthur character has just escaped the numbing effects of his mood stabilizers and is 'feeling' the world for the first time in ages, so a little imprudence can be expected of such big adjustments.

However, the others, stressed as they might be, play aggravatingly dumb and don't provoke sympathy as often as a sharp "Really? Are you that stupid?" The performances are very good- nothing unusual from Tilda Swinton (she's playing her White Witch with a couple quirks.) George Clooney was just fine and doesn't need guff from people who think he just a ladies man with a self-important ego (maybe so, maybe not, but let's not judge, shall we?)

Tom Wilkinson strikes a balance between vulgar and vulnerable, and does well both feigning an American accent (he's British) and conducting his shallow, disorganized, and ridiculously fast speech, which gives the feeling he believes the oxygen is being pulled out of the air. And cliche is sidestepped when Michael's son Henry, a smart alecky and precocious kid, doesn't fall victim to 'child in trouble' script, and is at no point threatened, menaced and ransomed (Rated R.)