"No Strings Attached"
Richard's Review: 2 stars
"No Strings Attached," the new R-rated rom com from director Ivan "Ghostbusters" Reitman is a modern movie for a generation of text and sex couples terrified of commitment.
Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman play 20-something Los Angelenos who slowly realize that sex is easy while love requires a lot more work. She's a "relationshiphobic" workaholic. He wears his heart on his sleeve. At first they agree to a friends-with-benefits set up, arranging trysts by text and keeping it informal but when the l-word -- that's love -- rears its head it threatens to blow apart their casual connection.
"No Strings Attached" is one of those rare movies where the main characters are the least interesting people in the movie. Natalie Portman (who stars and is one of the movie's producers) is having an interesting year professionally. In "Black Swan" she hands in one of the most memorable performances of the year only to follow it up with a dull offering in a movie that she seems miscast in. This seems more like a Kathryn Hiegl movie than a Natalie Portman vehicle; a movie with leads that could have been played by any number of Hollywood rom com regulars. Insert Heigl and Paul Rudd or Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel and this would have been pretty much the same movie.
Worse, despite the bouncing bed springs and many, many shared sex scenes, Kutcher and Portman don't seem to have much chemistry. The pair generates so little heat you may want to bring a blanket with you to the theatre.
Luckily the supporting cast has more to offer than the above-the-title stars. Who knew Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges had such a light touch? He has a small, recurring role and knocks it out of the park every time he's on screen. Ditto Greta Gerwig, the former indie darling who impressed in "Greenberg" and now has the funniest line in this movie and will someone please give Lake Bell the lead in a comedy. She's beautiful, funny and pulls focus from whoever she shares a frame with. As the neurotic television producer she has the funniest almost-love scene we've seen in ages and adds some much needed zip to the predictable and occasionally even dull story.
Go to see Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher sorta naked. Stay to see Lake Bell, Ludacris and Gerwig bring the funny.
"The Company Men"
Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars
"The Company Men," a new downsizing drama starring Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones, is the flipside of last year's hit "Up in the Air." Where George Clooney and company gave us a glimpse into the inner workings of how companies fire employees, "The Company Men" shows us the other side, what happens to people who find themselves suddenly left out in the cold.
The story revolves around three men in different stages of their careers at GTX, a shipping and manufacturing conglomerate in the midst of restructuring and sale. Middle management type Bobby Walker (Affleck) is the first to be let go. He's arrogant, refuses to believe he is unemployable, and is convinced there is a corner office with his name on the door somewhere out there. Cooper is Phil Woodward, a few rungs higher on the ladder, but also a few years older. When he gets fired his grey hair gets in the way of finding a new job. Finally at the top of the ladder is Gene McClary (Jones), the company's gruff CFO. He's a corporate shark tired of swimming in infested waters.
"The Company Men" taps into the zeitgeist. According to the movie corporations are big bad soulless beasts that have led to the collapse of the homegrown manufacturing industry. The only way America will survive, it suggests, is by getting back to basics, switching off Bloomberg TV and putting employees in front of the bottom line. It's not a revolutionary premise, but it is a timely and crowd pleasing one.
Performances are top notch from Affleck whose arrogant facade slowly gets chipped away until he is forced to deal with his humiliation, fear and anger, to Cooper's world weary white collar panic. But it is Jones and Kevin Costner who really shine. Jones's take on a corporate bigwig rediscovering his idealism is by times warm, by times caustic but always compelling, and Costner, as a small businessman -- read: salt of the earth -- who doesn't worry about the books as much as he does for his workers is terrific in a small but important role.
It may be hard to make us feel empathy for former highflyers whose biggest issue is where to place the second Christmas tree or how much to ask for their Porsche but "The Company Men" does a good job of shining a light on the situation as a whole and levelling the playing field, telling a story about the people and not the corporations that spawned them.
"The Way Back"
Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars
"The Way Back," a new drama from "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World' director Peter Weir, is a sprawling epic with a very personal focus. Set against the backdrop of war, inhumanity and an almost insurmountable challenge, it is about that most personal of things, survival.
Based on a controversial memoir written by Slavomir Rawicz, "The Way Back" begins with Polish solider Janusz (Jim Sturgess) sent to a hellish Siberian gulag in 1941 on trumped up charges. Sentenced to 10 years -- a term he knows he won't survive -- he and a group of prisoners, including a grizzled American soldier (Ed Harris) and a violent Russian criminal (Colin Farrell) make a break for it. Their goal? Freedom. The obstacle? A 4,000 kilometer walk through the harsh terrain of Mongolia, China and Tibet on the way to India and a new life. Along the way they pick up one more traveller, a young girl (Saoirse Ronan) whose camaraderie helps bond the ragtag band of escapees.
Visually Weir and cinematographer Russell Boyd have created a film in which the surroundings really become as much a part of the fabric of the story as the characters. The breathtaking shots of the terrain the travellers pass through add much to the story, emphasizing the isolation and hardship of the journey. Their choice to showcase the backgrounds echoes David Lean and gives the film an epic feel as the story narrows and focuses on the characters.
The acting is uniformly excellent, with Ed Harris and Colin Farrell handing in tremendous work, but the most memorable performance belongs to Saoirse Ronan, the sixteen-year-old Irish actress. Here she plays an orphan whose enthusiasm and spirit gives the men the will to go on. She brings heart to a film that occasionally is a bit dour for its own good.
"The Way Back" is compelling stuff, a nicely painted portrait of the will to outwit, outlast and outplay against all odds.
"Incendies"
Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars (UNTIL THE VERY END)
"Incendies," Canada's entry in the Oscar race for Best Foreign Film, was made by a Quebec filmmaker and shot in the Middle East but plays like a Greek tragedy.
Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play of the same name it weaves a complicated story of, as reported on IMDB, "of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love." The story begins with a mother's last wish, a request in her will that her estranged twin kids travel to her homeland (an unnamed Middle Eastern country) in search of some hard truths about her life and, ultimately, their very existence.
I have to start by saying that "Incendies" is expertly made, with gorgeous cinematography, great performances, particularly from Lubna Azabal as the mother Nawal, and at least one sequence as memorable as anything we'll see on screen this year -- a harrowing attack on a bus by Christian extremists -- but my overall feeling of the film is tempered by the movie's closing moments.
I have a theory that the last minutes of a movie can colour the way you feel about a film. For instance a so-so movie can be bolstered by a blockbuster ending. Similarly a great movie with a weak ending can come down a notch or two in the viewer's estimation. Such is the case with "Incendies."
Director Denis Villeneuve -- the helmer of "Maelström" and "Polytechnique" -- is not one to shy away from the difficult or unpalatable aspects of whatever story he is telling, which is normally a good thing. That makes him one of the braver and more interesting filmmakers working today. And while for much of the running time "Incendies" plays like a roll call of misery, it all seems to fit, until the very end when he caps the story with a revelation so unbelievable it makes the rest of the film ring hollow. Being shocked at the theatre is one thing. We don't have enough movie moments that really challenge us these days, but a climax this unsatisfying isn't shocking really, just disappointing after such an interesting film.
I can't go into details without revealing a MAJOR plot point but suffice to say that an ending that stretches credulity to this point is almost worse than no ending at all.
