Going, Going, Gone. Movies Reviewed: Wolf, Before I Go to Sleep, Force Majeure
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, 
movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
It’s Halloween – you can tell by all the zombies on the street. But if you’re too old for trick-or-treating, there are some grown-up movies to watch. This week I’m looking at a Dutch gangster flick about a man who doesn’t know where he’s going, a Swedish comedy about a man who doesn’t know where his marriage is going, and an English psychological thriller about a woman who doesn’t know where her memories have gone.
Wolf
Dir: Jim Taihuttu
Majid (Marwan Kenzari) is a kickboxer who lives in an ethnic enclave in suburban Netherlands. The son of Moroccan immigrants, he still shares a room with his little brother in his parents’ desolate, high-rise flat. He works at the same place his dad spent 30 years in unrelenting dedication. It’s a quintessentially Dutch job – he drives a forklift at the flower auction held each morning near Schipol airport. He doesn’t like the job – it’s boring. He’d rather be out on the streets with his weasely best friend, Adil (Chemseddine Amar), or training at kickboxing. But he’s 
forced to work there because he’s on parole. He dabbles in snatch-and-grabs for extra cash.
He’s the black sheep in the family. His educated brother Hamza (who is dying of cancer) is his parents’ darling. The one thing Majid is good at is fighting, and a kickboxing win could generate some much-needed cash. But he messes up his first fight by ignoring the ref, and clobbering his opponent, nearly to death.
Watching the fight was a gangster kingpin, a successful Turkish immigrant named Hakan (Cahit Olmuz). He hires Majid as a backup heavy for a high-level drug deal. It seems Majid has other skills – he can think on his feet and is quick with a gun. And he understands Arabic, something the Turkish gangsters can’t. The job goes great, and he is rapidly promoted. He has a meteoric rise, but how long can it last? Will it interfere with his true ambition – his boxing career? And will his father ever be
proud of him?
Shot in stunning, sharp black and white, Wolf is an interesting look at the gangster world, sympathetically told through the eyes of second-generation immigrants. It shows the racism they face, as well as friction among various immigrant groups. And how the lure of money and power drags some people into a life of organized crime. The movie covers a lot of ground, and leaves some of the stories incomplete, dangling. It’s also one of those movies where female characters are incidental, confined to a stoic mom and a breasty girlfriend. But Kenzari has a dynamite screen presence, and Olmuz as the crime boss and Amar as his shifty best friend round out the cast nicely. Wolf is worth watching, especially if you’re a fan of gangster dramas.
Before I Go to Sleep
Dir: Rowan Joffe
Christine (Nicole Kidman) wakes up in a strange bed with a strange man, thinking: Where am I? What did I do last night, how did I meet this guy? He soon sets her straight. He’s her husband, a patient, kindly schoolteacher. Ben (Colin Firth) is there each morning to help her recover. Recover from what? From total amnesia – she suffered a nasty bump on the head, which wiped her memory clean. 
And each night, when she falls asleep, she forgets anything she learned that day.
To combat this and to try to recover her memories, she also meets the secretive Dr Nasch (Mark Strong). He’s a neuropsychologist. With his help – and unbeknownst to her husband, she records a video each night as a letter to herself the next day. She discovers the amnesia came from a terrible beating. But who did it? And she’s haunted by images of a 
third man with a scar on his face. Lovely Christine is caught between the intensely handsome doctor and the comforting and patient husband. Both of whom seem to be hiding something from her. Which one can she trust? Or should she only trust herself?
This is a good, tight psychological thriller that keeps you guessing. It’s angsty and scary. You feel for poor Christine as she gradually recovers her past, and the pain and regret the memories bring her. The three main actors, Kidman, Strong and Firth, are all good in their respective roles. Before I Go To Sleep is a good, tense thriller. The problem? After it’s over, if you think about it too hard, the plot falls apart like a house of cards. None of it makes any sense.
Force Majeure
Dir
: Ruben Östlund
Tomas and Ebba (Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli) are a happily married Swedish couple. With their two cute kids, Vera and Harry (Clara and Vincent Wettergren) they take a much-needed vacation in the French Alps. Tomas spends too much time at work or on his smartphone, so this is where family bonding and quality time should kick in. And it seems to be working. They pose for pictures, ski down slopes… they even wear matching pale blue long underwear. But one day, at an open-air restaurant on the chalet roof, something terrible happens. A fierce avalanche sends tons of snow thundering down the stunning peaks, covering them in a white cloud. In a moment of panic, Tomas grabs his phone and runs away — leaving his wife and kids cowering beneath the table. Moments later he realizes it was a false alarm. He 
creeps back as if nothing has happened. But the seeds are planted. When it comes up in conversations with other tourists Tomas pretends it never happened. His kids are furious, and Ebba is flabbergasted. If Dad won’t protect them or even admit to his failings, how can they ever trust him?
Ebba tries to talk with Swedish women she meets at the hotel, but they all seem to be having casual sex behind closed chalet doors. Will no one uphold the sanctity of marriage? Does it mean anything anymore?
Later they encounters a bearded hipster travelling with a much younger woman. The two end up joining them in discussions of the dilemma of what Tomas should do, even holding impromptu marriage counselling. What are bravery, morality, 
masculinity, honesty? And what would you do facing a real disaster?
Force Majeure is both a brilliant comedy, and a clever social satire. It’s told against the background of a futuristic/minimalist chalet: all blonde wood, clanking ski lifts, moving sidewalks, and toy drones. And in the distance, loud cannons add a sinister tone of impending doom to what should be a normal ski trip. Great movie!
Before I Go to Sleep and Force Majeure open today in Toronto; check your local listings. Wolf is released on November 4th on DVD. And look out for the Kubrick exhibition, opening today at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks to actor Barrett Crake and writer/producer Eric Staley about their new film Eternity: The Movie
Hi, This is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s the 1980s. Naive and starry-eyed, blond Todd Lucas arrives in LA with just the shirt on his back and the song in his heart. His dream? Make it big as a musician. But to pay his rent he takes a day job at a discount clothing store. There he meets dark, moustachioed BJ Fairchild, who’s into sex, 
saxes, and girls, girls, girls!
Together the two of them form an R&B duo. The band’s called Eternity. But will it last? Will their friendship persevere? And is something in their relationship that will make it last… an Eternity?
So asks a new musical comedy called Eternity: The Movie that opens today in Toronto. 
Eternity is a high-camp look at bad sweaters, big hair, music videos, and the whole hardboiled LA music scene of the 1980s.
I spoke to Eric Staley and Barrett Crake here in Toronto. They shared their thoughts on singing, Hall & Oates, R&B, auditions, moving to LA from Texas, San Diego, quadruple threats, sucking breasts, the 80s, Myko Olivier, Care Bears and Rainbow Brite, Madonna, Eric Roberts, playing the guitar, a possible tour with Eternity, karaoke and Eternity: the Movie.
Peter Pan Syndrome. Movies Reviewed: Whiplash, Laggies, What We Do in the Shadows PLUS ImagineNATIVE
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
ImagineNative Film and Media Arts Festival started with a blast on Wednesday night. Two women read aloud the Sami Declaration of Indigenous Cinema. It declares that the oral tradition of native cultures must be preserved through storytelling on the screen. That sums up what this festival brings us – international views and culture, respecting the indigenous creators.
This week, I’m looking at three very different, but very good movies. There’s a thrilling drama about a young musician who won’t give up; a comedy about a woman who won’t grow up; and a mockumentary from New Zealand about vampires who won’t grow old.
Whiplash
Dir: Damien Chazelle
Andrew (Miles Teller) is a 19-year-old music student. Pale-cheeked and dark haired, he lives in a New York City apartment with his single father (Paul Reiser). He plays the drums with a driven passion, and he’s just starting at a prestigious music conservatory. He finds an unused drum set in a dusty school room and plunges right in. Drummer’s heaven. And who walks by and hears him but Fletcher (JK Simmonds). He’s a bald, acerbic music teacher who is also the head of the school’s elite, prize-winning jazz band. And he pulls Andrew out of 
class to audition for the band. This is rare, since the band members are much older and more accomplished.
He realizes something big is happening – his talent is finally being recognized! His life is going great, and he even gets the confidence to ask a girl he sees at the local rep cinema on a date.
But, what he doesn’t know is that Fletcher is also a perfectionist who demands top 
performances from his players, even during rehearsal times. That’s good, right? No! Fletcher is a cruel and twisted megalomaniac, who loves nothing more than driving his music students to tears. Every position in the band is tenuous, at best, subject to Fletchers’ whims. Now you’re in, now you’re out. And he elevates the importance of the band to mythic proportions.
Andrew soon realizes that he has to devote every waking moment of his life to reaching absolute, synchonistic perfection in his drumming if he wants to stay in the band. And Fletcher seems to have singled him out as the victim he can elevate 
and then crush. Who will triumph in this battle of minds? Sensitive young Andrew? Or the fascistic Fletcher?
Whiplash is a fantastic and tense thrilling movie. Director Chazelle manages to portray a music academy as a boot camp or a boxing match. Andrew’s not a musician but an athlete, and one who drums until he bleeds. Miles Teller as the kid and JK Simmonds (Law & Order) as the teacher perfectly play the two sides of this violent duet. The acting, the passion and the relentless tension in this movie is just incredible… you gotta see it. Whiplash was the first movie I saw at press previews at TIFF back in August and and it became the standard against which I measured every movie after it.
Laggies
Dir: Lynn Shelton
Megan (Keira Knightly) is a happily unmarried slacker in her late twenties. OK, her post-graduate school career hasn’t exactly taken off, but she still has her loving dad, her high school friends and Anthony, the longtime boyfriend she lives with. But at a wedding, she discovers maybe her Dad’s not so great, and her best friends aren’t. And when Anthony proposes marriage (and a quicky wedding in Las Vegas) Megan panics. She flees the wedding.
She ends up hanging with some teenagers she meets at a strip mall liquor store. She identifies with them, especially Annika (Chloe Grace Moritz). She was like her in high school…. Which wasn’t that long ago. They become friends. And this new friendship also gives her a chance to get away from her own life. She secretly moves
in with her new best bud for an extended sleepover party. But Craig, Annika’s single dad (Sam Rockwell) discovers his daughter’s new best friend… is a grown up. They have a long talk. Does Megan see herself more as an adult like Craig, or a kid like Annika? Or is she somewhere in between? And how would their relationship change if she dated her dad?
Laggies is a cute, funny romantic comedy about the maturing of a young woman in her twenties. Director Lynn Shelton (Your Sister’s Sister, Humpday) comes from the Seattle low-budget indie scene, and this is her first one with big name stars. And she pulls it off. Keira Knightly and Chloe Moritz are great as the mismatched friends. (My only question? Is “single dad” a new movie trend?)
What We Do in the Shadows.
Dir: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi
Four guys with an unusual sense of fashion share a house in downtown Wellington, New Zealand. There’s the flamboyant and sensitive, pirate-shirted Viago (Taika Waititi) who pines for his lost love Katherine. Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) sticks to clandestine orgies behind his velvet drapes. And ex-nazi Deacon (Jonathan 
Brugh) can often be found hanging upside down like a bat. They have regular house meetings, complete with job wheels. And of course they love a good night out. Why? So they can find some virgins and suck their blood. They’re vampires, of course! When they say “clean up the bloody dishes” they mean it literally.
And they’re part of the underground – if somewhat cheesy — supernatural subculture 
we’re told exists in Wellington, complete with zombies, witches and werewolves. As vampires they can fly around and sleep in coffins. But they don’t know how to use facebook or take selfies. So, with the help of regular not-dead guy Stu, they try to adjust to modern life and avoid spilling blood everywhere.
What we do in the Shadows is a hilarious character-driven fake documentary about
the lives of oddballs in New Zealand. It opened ImagineNative not for its topic, but for the filmmakers, producer and stars of the movie
All three movies played at TIFF this year. Laggies and Whiplash both open commercially today, check your local listings. What We Do in the Shadows opened at ImagineNative – which continues through October 26th featuring Australian movies and many gallery installations. Free before 6:00 pm for students, seniors and underemployed. Go to imaginenative.org for more info.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, for CIUT 89.5 FM and culturalmining.com
Love vs Sex. Movies reviewed: The Best of Me, White Bird in a Blizzard PLUS TIFF Cinematheque Free Screen
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping
you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Some things in life are free.
TIFF Cinematheque has a program of experimental and avant-garde film called Free Screen. The fall season opens tonight featuring, new films by Canadian director 
Barbara Sternberg and work by Cliff Enns. Both fimmakers will be at the screening. These art films are shot with unusual techniques. Sternberg uses rotoscope animation (that’s projected photographic images traced and redrawn, frame-by-frame, into animation). Enns’ film uses Fisher-Price PixelVision, a 1980s B&W toy video camera. Very cool and aesthetically pleasing stuff. For details go to tiff.net/cinematheque.
This week, movies about about “free” things, like love, friendship and family.
There’s a teary, romantic drama about lovers torn apart in the bayous of Louisiana, and a mystery drama about a disappearing mama in a 1980s suburbia.
The Best of Me
Dir: Michael Hoffman (based on the Nicholas Sparks novel)
Dawson Cole is a shy kid at a Louisiana High School. He likes science and is good at fixing things — like cars. And when he helps his perky classmate Amanda with car trouble, sparks fly. She invites him on a date. The problem? Amanda is rich and popular, while Dawson comes from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s a member of the notorious Cole clan, under 
the sway of his evil daddy and his two mean brothers. Most kids sneak alcohol or contraband past their parents. Not in this family: he gets punished for sneaking homework into their shack when he should be getting drunk and playing cards with his pappy! You think you’re better than us? You ain’t better than us, you’re white trash and don’t you forget it! Daddy beats him up so he runs away. And misses the first date.
He ends up in the garage of an old man named Tuck, who takes pity on the good kid from the bad family. Dawson and Amanda stare into each others’ limpid eyes by the 
Spanish moss, ‘neath the twinkling stars. He picks a red rose…they have their first kiss. Together they spin plans for an idyllic future… until an unexplained event splits them apart.
Decades later, they meet again in their small town, after the death of a mutual friend. Dawson works as a roughneck now on an oil rig in the Gulf. Amanda is a housewife with a weasel-y, unloving husband. She adores her teenage son but he’s heading off to college. Though both are haunted by sad memories, can they rekindle their romance? Or are they just captives of class and destiny, never to 
love again?
Dawson and Amanda are played by two sets of actors. Luke Bracey (he co-starred in the recent action thriller November Man) and Liana Liberato play the dewy-eyed teens. She’s the fiery, sharp-tongued one matched with his strong and silent type. Grown-up heartthrobs James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan play the same characters as adults, but more wistful and filled with regret.
This movie is a totally weepie romance. It’s got everything you expect: true love – unrequited; innocent teens burdened with their families’ prejudices; and passions left to smolder for decades. Total cheese, clichés, and stock charicatures. What’s its point? To tug at your heartstrings and make you cry. It’s a weeper. And I did. Not my cup of tea, but if you’re into classic romances, this one does it right, serving up love on a silver platter in the deep, deep South.
White Bird in a Blizzard
Dir: Gregg Araki (Based on the novel by Laura Kasischke)
It’s the 1980s – that means kids have big hair and wear bright colours that don’t match. Kat (Shaileen Woodley) has an OK suburban family, taken directly from a TV sitcom. Mom’s a glamorous model-type (French actress Eva Green) who always puts her down. Hapless Dad (Law and Order’s Christopher Meloni) is a total loss – he looks like John Cleese on Fawlty 
Towers (complete with bad moustache and receding hairline, but without the witty repartee.) Kat hangs with her two best friends – both self-described fat chicks. One’s black the other a skinny gay 
guy, who has a “fat chick deep inside”. Kat self-identifies too, even though she recently lost weight and grew breasts, She discovers sex and can’t wait to try it out with Phil, the good-looking chowderhead next door. Phil lives with his nosey blind mom.
Then suddenly Kat’s mom disappears and her life starts to change. Did she run away and abandon her family? Is she coming back again? Or is she dead? She is 
haunted by dreams – her mom and other people appearing in blinding white snowdrifts. She sees a therapist (Angela Basset) and talks with the police – one detective in particular. She’s crushing on him, and tries to seduce him. Meanwhile she follows the clues like an amateur detective, to find out what happened to her mother. Her boy-next-door boyfriend Phil seems to have flirted with her mom! Does he know where she is? Even her dad seems to have a secret to hide… What’s going on?
Gregg Araki is known for his stylized indie films, that offer a queer look at coming-of-age and sexual awakening in the suburbs. He’s good about shifting sexual and ethnic mixtures. This one fits his style, with an attractive cast, a quirky main actress, and lots of sex, nudity, music and nostalgic looks at the counter-culture. It doesn’t quite hold together. It jumps from painfully wooden family tableaux, to fresh and realistic portrayals of 80s youth culture. Are they part of the same movie? The acting ranges from the dreadful (Meloni) to great (Woodley and Gabourey Sidibe as her BFF). Still, White Bird in a Blizzard is pleasant to watch, with a great ambient soundtrack, and a few whopper surprises.
The Best of Me opens today, and White Bird in a Blizzard starts next week in Toronto. Check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com
Zaniness. Movies reviewed: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, God Help the Girl PLUS October Film Festivals!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking 
at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Get ready: it’s fall film festival season in Toronto. Coming next week are: BRAFFTV, the Brazilian festival of film and television; Estdocs, the Estonian 
Documentary Festival; and RIFF, the Reel Indie Film Festival – featuring music-themed films. These festivals are packed with hidden treasures. Followed by Toronto after Dark for horror, sci-fi, action and cult: perfect for October. And ImagineNative, the film and media arts festival celebrating works by indigenous artists and filmmakers from 
around the world.
Lots of festivals – don’t they make you want to get out, see the world? (Lame segue?) Well, this week I’m looking at two movies about people who climb out their windows! One’s a musical drama about a beautiful, young woman in Glasgow, Scotland who just wants to make music; the other’s a screwball comedy about an extremely old man in Sweden who just wants to blow something up.
The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann)
Dir: Felix Herngren
It’s Allan Karlsson’s 100th birthday at his old-age home in small-town Sweden, but Karlsson (Robert Gustafsson) isn’t interested. So he climbs out his 1st floor window and buys a bus ticket to the nearest town (population:1). But before he leaves he is ambushed by 
a motorcycle gang skinhead carrying a large metal suitcase. Somehow, Karlsson ends up on the bus with the suitcase… but no skinhead. And so begins his journey 
with the guy in the next village, a perpetual student they meet hitchhiking, an animal rights activist, and the circus elephant she liberated. And they’re being chased by the local police who think Karlsson was kidnapped, and the gangsters who want that suitcase back – and the millions of krona stuffed inside it. But that’s just half the story.
The other half is all about how the 100-year-old man has lived his life: as a demolition expert – a guy who blows things up. You may be thinking: Bombs? In Sweden? But yeah! The Swede’s seem to have a knack for it, what with Alfred Nobel’s dynamite, Ivar Kreuger (the Match King), and the country’s enormous weapon industry. Karlsson’s expertise leads him to repeated brushes with famous leaders. From Franco to Stalin, from Truman to Reagan, somehow he’s there (like a Zelig or a Forrest Gump) at all the crucial moments.
Not a deep movie, but a totally zany, screwball-comedy look at the 20th century through the eyes of a hapless demolition expert. The 100-Year-Old Man is engaging, very entertaining and great fun.
God Help the Girl
Dir: Stuart Murdoch
Eve (Emily Browning) is a young Australian woman who lives in a Glasgow mental hospital. She spends her time lying in bed listening to radio DJs. She is waif-like with pale skin, auburn hair and huge eyes. Quite beautiful but quite depressed. She has songs to sing and 
words to express, but no one to hear them. So, one day she just climbs out the window and walks away, singing.
She wanders into a Glasgow concert hall and there she meets James, a guitarist in a fistfight with his obnoxious drummer. Glasgow is run by NEDs (non-educated delinquents) he says. James (Olly Alexander) is a skinny, wimpy guitar player with curly hair and glasses – a Scottish Michael Cera.
He works as a lifeguard but has “the constitution of an abandoned rabbit.” Eve tells him she’ll find him again at the pool. Could it be love?
Back at the mental hospital, her doctor tells her that she needs support – a home, food, a job and friends – and good health before she can worry about less important things like her music. But for Eve, music is everything. She sneaks out 
to play the piano and compose songs. And she manages to record her music on a cassette tape.
She gives the tape to Anton (Pierre Boulanger), a tall, dark and handsome French rock musician she meets. They make out and she instructs him to pass it on to the radio DJs. He is impressed by her beauty. “You have exquisite breasts” he tells her.
James, meanwhile, is impressed by her talent – Eve can compose 
songs spontaneously, based on the thoughts in her head. And she has such a pleasing and rich voice that she could sing a diner menu and people would still listen. (In fact, Eve gets a job as a waitress.)
He takes her meet to Cassie, his music student. Cassie (Hannah Murray – who also played a Cassie in Skins) is a free spirit who wants to learn to play the guitar and write songs. Eve wants people to hear her music. James wants to cut a record. Hey, let’s form a band! So they do.
They write some catchy tunes – in the style of sixties pop — and sing and dance and pose. But what will the future bring?
Will the DJs ever listen to her tape? Will Eve and James ever realize their true love? Will James ever see his dream of recording a record? And will the band ever perform?
This is a cute refreshing musical written and composed by Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian fame. It’s full of songs and dances that pop up after each serious event. But it leaves you thinking: is the movie a series of music videos linked by a storyline? Or a drama with a bunch of highly-stylized musical performances popping up? Either way, I enjoyed it a lot.
The Hundred Year Old Man and God Help the Girl both open today. Check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5
Daniel Garber talks with director Andrew Gregg about State of Incarceration, his new doc on CBC TV’s Doc Zone
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM
Some strange things have been happening to Canada’s justice system under the current federal government. We’re building more prisons than ever before, even as we cut spending on rehabilitation of prisoners. Crime rates have reached new lows but we’re imprisoning more people, and keeping them there longer.
What does this mean? Why is it happening? Will it accomplish what the government is trying to do? And how does Canada compare to our neighbour to the south?
A new CBC documentary called STATE OF 
INCARCERATION looks at these issues and speaks to experts on both sides of the argument. It’s directed by Canadian filmmaker Andrew Gregg. (I last interviewed Andrew two years ago about his doc The Norse: an Arctic Mystery. You can listen to that interview here)
I spoke with Andrew at CIUT about the changes to the Canadian justice system, and his eye-opening documentary STATE OF INCARCERATION. It premiers on CBC-TV, Thursday, October 9, 2014 at 9 pm.
Mommies and Dollies. Films Reviewed: Mommy, Annabelle
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
This week is Mental Health Awareness week – John Kastner’s NFB documentary NCR: Not Criminally Responsible (listen to my interview with John here) is playing at the Bloor Cinema, and Rendezvous 
with Madness and the Psychiatry Department at U of T is showing William Kurelek’s: the Maze by filmmakers Nick and Zack Young (listen to my interview with Zack Young here), at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This week, though, I’m talking about innocent-sounding movies about mommies and pretty dollies. But they’re not as innocent as you might think. One’s a Quebec drama about a mother trying to control her ADHD son; the other’s an American chiller about a mother trying to save her baby from an evil doll.
Mommy
Dir: Xavier Dolan
Diane (Anne Dorval) is enjoying her life as a single woman in suburban Montreal. Her son’s away at boarding school, she has a steady job, and she’s flirting with that rich lawyer who lives around the corner. She dresses for flash-effect, with lots of shiny and pink. But calamity strikes. Her son Steve is kicked out of school after a violent incident and she loses her job.
Steve-o (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) is a foul-mouthed teenager with ADHD. He wears his blond hair in a retro style, with a neck chain, T-shirt and jeans. He’s hyper-sexualized with pale skin and rubbery features. The kind of guy who looks as likely to punch you in the face as to kiss you. He’s a foul-mouthed, socially misfit, sexually charged and violent. But you can see where he 
gets it from – Diane is as gutter-friendly as he is. It’s up to her to get him to settle down and pass his tests. Trouble is he’s virtually uncontrollable, and she’s not big on parenting skills, so their lessons end up in violent fights.
In walks the psychologically-damaged ex-school teacher who lives next door. Kyla (Suzanne Clement) is shy, withdrawn and speaks with a severe stammer due to something bad in her past. Her husband’s a dull computer programmer, her daughter equally reserved. But she soon finds her place as the 
third element in Diane and Steve’s dysfunctional family. She becomes his teacher and dog trainer. But can the fragile bonds holding them together last?
Mommy is a reworking of Xavier Dolan’s simple, perfect, and highly personal first film J’ai Tue Ma Mere, made when he was still a teenager. Four films later, Mommy is far more sophisticated and complex in plot, script and character. Dorval replays the mother, but in a performance that is more three-dimensional, less camp. Dolan was sympathetic playing a bullied gay teen, but, with Pillon as the teenager, we get a kid who is as much misunderstood victim as bully. I get the feeling Dolan the director (necessarily) restrains Dolan the actor, but when he’s just behind the camera, he can let his characters loose. Steve is free to forge forth, like a river bursting a dam. This movie has dynamic, shocking and hilarious performances from all three actors. It’s a great film.
Mommy is Canada’s choice for Best Foreign Language movie at the Oscars, and I hope it wins — it really deserves it.
Annabelle
Dir: John R. Leonetti
It’s the late 1960s in central California. Mia and John (Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton) are a perfect-looking, church-going blond couple. New home, new car, he’s finishing medical school, she’s expecting their baby really soon. Mia collects antique dolls, so John buys her one to complete her set. And everything is just perfect, until…
…their lives are shockingly disrupted by an unexpected visit by Annabelle, their next door neighbours’ daughter. Anabelle ran away from home and joined a Charles Manson-style satanic cult. After that horrific incident, Mia says she 
no longer feels safe there with the new baby. And the huge doll she used to like so much is creeping her out. Strange things start to happen around it, involving a sewing machine, a rocking chair, and a package of jiffy pop. So they move out of the suburbs and into a downtown apartment.
Hubby is away most of the time, so he’s oblivious but accommodating. He thinks his wife’s gone whack from post-partum depression, but Mia knows there’s evil 
around her. And it wants her baby. She sees scary things everywhere: strange noises… the sign of the bull… a girl in a white nightgown… a rocking chair… an old-fashioned elevator… and that damned doll that keeps coming back! It seems to turn everything bad, somehow. So she turns for advice to kindly Father Perez (Tony Amendola) and Evelyn, a mysterious bookstore owner, with a penchant for the occult (Alfre Woodard). But are they all too late? And is Mia strong enough to overcome the evil forces that have invaded her once-happy life?
I saw this movie because it’s a prequel to The Conjuring, a movie that scared my pants off last year. So how does it copmpare? Not as scary, the acting not as compelling, the plot has lots of holes in it, and the script is weak with some unintentionally awful lines. It has few visual effects (though the sound effects are fantastic, one of the scariest things about the movie). And the story is a bit too Jesus-y for my taste. But is Annabelle scary? You bet it is.
Annabel Wallis is good as Mia — picture Madmen, but from Betty Draper’s point-of-view – beautiful but suspicious, lonely, paranoid and petulant. Annabelle is not perfect, but it works as a good and scary chiller-thriller — perfect for a late-night date.
Mommy and Annabelle both open today in Toronto – check your local listings. Also opening is the wonderful documentary Art and Craft about an eccentric art forger who gives his paintings away. (You can listen to my interview with filmmakers Sam Coleman and Jennifer Grausman here).
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
culturalmining.com 
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