"I Don't Know How She Does It"
Richard's Review: 1 star
In "I Don't Know How She Does It," a working mom comedy based on a popular book of the same name, Sarah Jessica Parker plays Carrie Bradshaw in a different time and dimension. This time out she's traded New York for Boston, her Manolo Blahniks for children, Mr. Big for Mr. Joe Average and all that sex in the city she used to have for bake sales and kids birthday parties.
Fans of "Sex and the City" will recognize some of the style of "I Don't Know How She Does It." If you've missed SJP typing on her laptop or doing ocassionally witty voice over, then you may find something here to like. Otherwise it's a tedious fourth-wall breaking exercise in female empowerment.
Where "Sex and the City" broke ground in its portrayal of female relationships, "I Don't Know How She Does It" settles for rehashing truisms we've heard ad nauseum. "Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman," may sound like a Carie Bradshaw line, but its minus the freshness that made Carrie's quips so memorable.
What it lacks in substance it tries to make up for with style. Graphics adorn the screen and characters address the audience. So is it a documentary? Nope, it's an underwritten comedy where the actors break the fourth wall to make up for the story's shortcomings.
"I Don't Know How She Does It" tries to play off SJP's previous successes, but only manages to be even more forgettable than "Sex and the City 2."
"Drive"
4 1/2 stars
The key piece of dialogue in "Drive," a new thriller starring Ryan Gosling, happens early on before any of the hard core action begins. Bernie Rose, a shady character played by Albert Brooks extends his hand to Gostling. The younger actor stares at the gesture of friendship for a moment before declining to shake.
"My hands are a little dirty," he says. "So are mine," replies Rose.
That quick conversation tells us that nobody in this movie is above board and they don't care who knows it.
Gosling is a man with no name, simply known as Driver, a movie stunt driver/grease monkey by day and getaway wheelman by night. Befriending his neighbors Irene (Carey Mulligan) and young son Benicio (Kaden Leos, who dials the cute kid factor way up) he makes a deal to drive getaway for some criminals to square a debt Irene's husband ran up, and thereby safeguard the mother and child. When the deal goes bad he unwittingly becomes involved in a treacherous situation involving Irene's recently paroled husband, $1 million in cash and some angry mobsters.
"Drive" is an art house thriller. It's stylized, with lighting effects, lots of slow motion and interesting camera angles that create a sense of unease that permeates every scene. For every instance of brutal violence director Nicolas Winding Refn ("Valhalla Rising," "Bronson") also escalates the movie's sense of heightened reality. Very long pauses punctuate most every exchange of dialogue and how is it that no one seems to notice that the Driver is drenched in blood as he walks through a tony Chinese restaurant? "Drive" exists in its own world, and it is a fascinating place.
Here Gosling isn't the easy charmer of "Crazy, Stupid, Love," he plays Driver like a coiled spring. There hasn't been a leading man this close-mouthed since Rudolph Valentino was the king of the silent screen. He's a man of very few words, but his silence hints at an active inner life and his actions certainly speak to having a past. It's a brave and strange performance, either emotionally shut down, or simply cool-as-a-cucumber, take your pick.
As for his co-stars, Mulligan isn't given much to do except use her subtly expressive face to make physical whatever is going on in her head. But Albert Brooks, cast against type as a mobster and Bryan Cranston as an unlucky garage owner are stellar. Refn clearly loves his actors, stroking them in long close-ups, allowing the camera to luxuriate on their faces. It's the exact opposite of what we usually find in thrillers, but here it adds atmosphere and star power.
"Drive" is long-on silence and big on anti-heroes, and is one of the most intriguing movies of the year so far.
