Are people going to the movies these days? Or staying away like James Bond? It’s not a time to stop because there’s so much new in town. I’ve got nine just arrived that I’m writing about this week. One of them, Emma, snuck into one theatre around here last week and is now in 10.
Onward: 3 stars
Greed: 3 ½
Emma: 3
The Way Back: 2 ½
Sorry We Missed You: 4
Vitalina Varela: 2 ½
I Was At Home But …: 3 ½
The Lodge: 3
Lie Exposed: 1 ½
ONWARD: It’s not as emotionally heady as the best of Pixar’s films, and too familiar at times, but there’s quite a bit here to recommend it. Sharp animation, naturally, plus a heartfelt affirmation of family, a wild adventure, magic and myth, all set in a totally modern world. Two brothers out on a quest driving a souped-up van echo countless teen movies, except that these boys are elves, modern versions with only their big ears to distinguish them. They lament that inventions like the lightbulb and now the smart phone have killed magic and but are given a chance to get some back. Their father, a wizard who had to make do as an accountant and died before they got to know him, left them a present. It’s a wizard stick with which they can bring him back for one whole day.
It works but only half of him is there, from the belt down. It’s a race against time to revive the rest of him. The burly older boy (voiced by Chris Pratt) pushes his insecure brother (Tom Holland) to come on the quest, hone his magic skills and find a mystical gem. They take “the path of peril” instead of the highway and encounter scavenging unicorns, a centaur cop, a crevasse they have to use magic to cross, fairies who ride motorcycles and a once-fierce manticore (Octavia Spencer) now reduced to running a roadside restaurant. Too easy, these sendups. Little kids won’t get most of them but might enjoy the flash of the busy roadtrip. Everyone else should wait through it for a very poignant ending. The story, inspired by director Dan Scanlon’s own thoughts of a dad he lost, eventually rewards with real feelings. (Dunbar, International Village, Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and many suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
GREED: Some people, and critics, are down on this one because they thought it should be more of a comedy than it is. Others think it fires at too many targets. I don’t. This is the most radical movie I’ve seen in some time and it hits its targets bluntly and deservedly. Steve Coogan is the star, in his seventh collaboration with director Michael Winterbottom, and they’ve created an evisceration of the super-rich. The comedy is there but it’s so stinging that it may not feel like it. If you like seeing pompous, hucksters getting hit with absolutely valid broadsides, you’ll enjoy this, and chuckle often.
Coogan plays the owner of a chain of London fashion shops who worked his way up with the prodding of a harpy mother and his own feelings of entitlement. He’s inspired by a real merchandiser who is well-known in England but I see him as a stand in for not one man, but a type. He’s a bully as a deal maker; he has clothes manufactured for cheap in Sri Lanka sweatshops and sells them at top prices; he’s immensely rich and avoids taxes. He’s shown organizing a lavish birthday party for himself on a Greek Island, testifying about bankruptcies before a parliamentary committee, humiliating his staff and driving unconscionable deals in Sri Lanka. There are many true details: a toady of a journalist is writing a biography, Bulgarian workers are building a mock Coliseum, Syrian refugees are spoiling the view by camping on the beach. He justifies avoiding taxes and cites Bono, Facebook and others to prove it. Too much? Not until the postscripts at the end that say it all again. Before that it’s a sprawling assault on income inequality. Bernie Sanders would like this film. (5th Avenue) 3 ½ out of 5
EMMA: She’s more of a snob than what I remember of previous versions of this Jane Austen tale, and that would fit. Austen warned us Emma was “unlikable” and the latest director to take on her story, Autumn de Wilde, seems to have taken that up to modernize her a bit. She’s also made the whole film more contemporary. Less Masterpiece Theatre artifice, an edgier tone, more comic dialogue and a faster pace is what she brings to it. And with Mr. Knightly, a nude scene (he’s facing away from us) to present him as something like a 19th century rock star. De Wilde comes to that naturally with her background in music videos and photos of pop stars. In most every other way, the look and themes of the story are intact.
Anya Taylor-Joy is luminous as Emma who imagines herself a matchmaker but is really a meddler. She dissuades Harriet (Mia Goth) from her attraction to a farmer (too low in status) and to switch to a vicar (a dodgy character, though she’s slow to realize that). She also has to distinguish between two other men, the thoughtless Mr. Churchill and one with good manners and intentions, Mr. Knightly (played by singer Johnny Flynn who is soon to be seen portraying David Bowie). That theme of what constitutes a good and moral person is key to this story and something Emma has to learn. The film could have been sharper in presenting it and that would have been more compelling. It’s well-decorated, well-acted and witty but a bit blithe about the gentry. Bill Nighy does a lot with a small role as Emma’s father. (Park, International Village and nine suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
THE WAY BACK: Ben Affleck has been so public and honest about his drinking problem that we hardly need him performing in this fictional story of an alcoholic. His own struggles would make a better movie, although, since he clearly knows the affliction, his presence is the best thing about this one. He doesn’t overdo; he doesn’t offer maudlin and he’s believable. Unfortunately the film is also obvious in what it says and its explanation for what’s this man’s problem is doesn’t satisfy. It comes late and that makes it feel like a manufactured plot turn rather than something real.
He plays a construction worker who drinks constantly, even while taking a shower. He has to be helped home from the bar he frequents. He’s separated from his wife and gets stroppy at a family gathering when asked about his drinking. Then he gets a call from his old Catholic School, where he was a star basketball player years before, with a plea to take over coaching today’s non-contender of a team. He won’t; then he does.
He sobers up but will that last? Will the team start winning and will that last? What does he have that can turn it around? A lot of swearing for one thing, indicating zeal, and willingness to sit down a top player and boost a timid one. The film keeps your interest even though there’s little you haven’t seen before and the points it makes feel too uncomplicated. BRON Creative from Burnaby and L.A. joined with Warner Brothers to produce it. (International Village, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 2 ½ out of 5
SORRY WE MISSED YOU: The gig economy is the target of Ken Loach’s latest blast at social injustice. He won awards with his last one, about the harsh welfare system in England, and he’s back to the same city, Newcastle, to expose that growing peril for many young workers. They have to make do with short term jobs, no benefits, no security. He tells of one man’s difficulties and how the system is stacked against him.
Kris Hitchen plays a father and husband still fighting his way out of the mess the financial collapse brought back in 2008. He becomes a driver for a parcel delivery company (the title is from the notes those guys leave when you’re not home to receive your package). He is assured he’s his own boss but you wouldn’t know it from the orders and threats the real boss spouts or the penalties she subjects the driver to. Little bit late? Client complains? Docked pay. Hardly an independent contractor, as the system defines him. Inevitable tensions at home and family problems bring on more difficulties and Loach spins it all into a biting judgement of today’s working class economy. (5th Avenue) 4 out of 5
Two art films at the Cinematheque ...
VITALINA VARELA: This one is moving, haunting even, but oh so slow, made by Pedro Costa from Portugal who is celebrated as one of the world’s best filmmakers. He loves to compose beautiful images and then linger on them at length. There’s an opening shot of a dark alley that holds and holds for the longest time before anybody comes down it. That it’s a funeral procession adds to the grey mood the film is building.
Vitalina is an actor in Costa films and this is her own story. She’s from a Portugese Island called Cape Verde where her husband abandoned her but has arrived here in Lisbon three days too late for his funeral. His house is run down (hers which she built herself is better). “I don’t trust you in life or death,” she says and slowly, a wider dreary picture forms. The local priest doesn’t do sermons anymore. He’s lost his congregation and his faith. Immigrants lead a hard life and Vitalina adds musings about the hardships that women face. Of her dead husband who promised to come back but didn’t, she proclaims “I won’t cry for no wretched man.” This is arthouse cinema, for sure. (The Cinematheque) 2 ½ out of 5
I WAS AT HOME, BUT …: This is also arthouse cinema but much livelier and involving, though also inscrutable. It’s a puzzle created by German auteur Angela Schanelec out of family pains, a schoolboy missing for a week, a couple arguing whether or not have a child, a bad second-hand bike deal and fierce criticism aimed at the director of an experimental film. “We can’t understand what we haven’t experienced personally,” the lead character, a young widow, proclaims in a lengthy speech about the nature of art.
How these all fit together is the puzzle. I don’t think they do; they happen to and around her. She’s played by Maren Eggert with a feisty strength that’ll have you glued. Watch her demand to return the bike, defend her son for his behavior at school, sing Moon River to her daughter and another time scream at her kids. Students at school rehearse a scene from Hamlet which may be intended as sort of a unifying device since it also deals with family problems, madness and dead fathers. But then maybe not. Things are revealed casually and maybe included that way too. It’s an intriguing film to try and decipher and won the best director award at last year’s Berlin Film Festival. (Cinematheque) 3 ½ out of 5
THE LODGE: Here’s a horror film that doesn’t rely on blood or jump scares, just good old fashion creepy atmosphere. It spins that to mesmerizing levels as it puts two opposing ideas in front of us. Is the woman crazy or are the children evil? There’s evidence for both and the film keeps you unsure right to the end.
The film is American, filmed in Quebec but directed by two Austrians, Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz who had a hit with another chiller, called Goodnight Mommy. The mommy in this one (Alicia Silverstone) is out very fast, and dad (Richard Armitage) is with a new woman (Riley Keough) who he met writing a book. She’s the sole survivor of a suicide cult and soon to be stepmother to his two children. Dad takes them all to a snow-covered house up in the mountains so they can get to know each other and then leaves them to go back to work for a couple of days. Bad idea but a good set up. The kids fear she’s traumatized and report hearing her up and walking during the night. Is it true? Power goes off in the house, Christmas presents go missing and there’s a newspaper printout saying they all died in a fire. Is that true? She hears voices and mutters about purgatory. It gets weirder and scarier as it goes. (Rio Theatre , Sat and Sun) 3 out of 5
LIE EXPOSED: This one I don’t understand. A woman in Toronto (Leslie Hope) leaves her art-gallery owner husband (Bruce Greenwood) when she’s diagnosed with a terminal illness, runs off to Los Angeles and has an affair with a photographer (Jeff Kober). Okay, it happens but … He took pictures of her and when she gets back home, they are exhibited in the gallery, discreetly, inside a mock up of a camera and viewed only through peep holes. Somebody says they’re all of her vagina. Jokes are made. Various couples are motivated to discuss their sex lives (“When was the last time you touched me?”) and Greenwood in his speech in the gallery says “Art takes the mass of life and makes sense of it.” Kober should have followed that. He wrote the play and produced the film based on it and at the end lets us see what’s in those peep holes. Who knows why? (International Village) 1 ½ out of 5