Broken. Films reviewed: Parthenope, The Unbreakable Boy, The Monkey
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies: there’s a boy with breakable bones, a toy monkey who could break your bones, and a woman whose beauty breaks every man’s heart.
Parthenope
Wri/Dir: Paolo Sorrentino (Reviews: Youth, Hand of God, The Great Beauty)
It’s Naples, 1950 and a woman gives birth in the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The baby is called Parthenope, named for both the city and the Greek myth. She grows up to be a young woman of epic beauty and legendary intellect (Celeste Dalla Porta). Men who try to seduce her, find their own words silenced by her pithy comebacks. Her days are filed with a search for beauty, happiness and meaning. She absorbs everything she reads, from John Cheever to Claude Levi-Strauss. Her closest friends are her brother Sandrino (Dario Aita) and Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo) the son of a maid. Together they form sort of a quasi menage a trois.
Parthenope aces her orals and is accepted into the prestigious anthropology department at the local university. From there she follows three very different paths: Academia — a professor takes her under his wing; Love, deciding which of her countless suitors should she consent to sleep with; and the 
city of Naples, itself. Along the way she encounters a corrupt and carnal bishop, a depressed superstar diva, a millionaire with a private helicopter, and many others. But will any of these people provide her with the answers she seeks?
Parthenope is a gorgeous and sumptuous look at post-war Naples as seen through the eyes of a beautiful woman as she lives her life. Celeste Dalla Porta is appealing to watch, but she is opaque and impenetrable: she merely observes without ever doing anything. Paolo Sorrentino is known for his his beautiful images, especially women as objects of desire. But he doesn’t seem to know what to do with a woman as his subject. Instead we get a hollow simulacrum of a main character, who drifts aimlessly but happily through her life as she encounters quirky strangers. I love the photography, the scenery, the people and the music — a collection of bright and shiny colours — but watching Parthenope leaves you feeling like you just flipped the glossy pages of a fashion magazine: superficially attractive but pointless.
The Unbreakable Boy
Co-Wri/Dir: Jon Gunn (Reviews: Ordinary Angels, I Still Believe, American Underdog, Jesus Revolution)
Scott (Zachary Levi) is a young salesman with big ambitions: he plans to move to Manhattan someday and make it big. But in the meantime, he likes golf, fine wine and travelling. He spends most of his time with his best friend Joe, a burley bearded man who is always giving him advice (Drew Powell). One day he meets a pretty and charming woman named Teresa (Meghann Fahy). Sparks fly, and nine months later, she gives birth to Austin (Jacob Laval). They’re not married but decide to bring him up together. But there’s a catch: he requires special care. Like his mom, Austin has Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a genetic condition that makes your bones very brittle. He suffers his first fracture in the birth canal, with many more breakages to follow. Eventually he is joined by a younger brother, Logan, who doesn’t share his breakability.
13 years later, Austin — aka the Aus-man — is now a happy school kid with a vivid imagination. He’s also on the autistic spectrum, but contrary to stereotypes, he’s outgoing, talkative and attends normal classes. He talks constantly, just like his dad. (I forgot to mention: Scott’s best friend Joe is imaginary) But all is not well. The family is deeply in debt. Austin is bullied at school. And Scott is drinking way too much, especially since he lost his job. Can the family pull itself back together? Or are they headed for ruin?
The Unbreakable Boy is a very cute, true story about an ordinary family working together to overcome their problems. As narrated by Jacob Laval as the Aus Man, it’s simple, touching and funny. I like the way it demystifies kids with
medical conditions and autism. And unlike most medical dramas, it’s not a weeper, though perhaps overly earnest. One warning: it is a faith-based movie, generally a red flag for cringe. Not my thing. Thankfully this one avoids most of the problems of that genre; preachiness and finger wagging and in-your-face prayers. If you’re in the mood for a light, informative, feel-good Christian movie that won’t make you squirm, check this one out.
The Monkey
Wri/Dir: Osgood Perkins (Reviews: Longlegs, Gretel and Hansel)
Hal and Bill (Christian Convery) are identical twins, but they couldn’t be more different. Bill, who was born a few minutes earlier, is self confident, athletic and aggressive. Hal is withdrawn and wears glasses as he tries to keep out of Bill’s way. But his brother is a bully, humiliating and hurting Hal on a daily basis, using a posse of popular girls as his private army. The two live with their single Mom (Tatiana Maslany) ever since their Dad, an airline pilot, walked away one day and never came back. When the boys go through the many souvenirs he brought home from around the world, they uncover something very unusual. It’s a mechanical automaton that’s an organ-grinder monkey. You wind him up and he plays a drum to the sound of carnival music. A harmless toy, right? Not exactly. When the drumstick comes down something terrible happens. Like when their babysitter is accidentally decapitated at a Benihana restaurant. But when it kills their beloved mother, the boys decided to hide the monkey somewhere that it can do no more harm. They are adopted by their aunt and uncle, a pair of swingers in small-town Maine. But they too are eventually killed in gruesome accidents. Was the money to blame?
Flash-forward 25 years. Hal (Theo James) still lives in Maine close to his teenaged son Petey (Colin O’Brien). He visits him only once a year, to lesson the chances of the cursed monkey in harming him. But then two cataclysmic events threaten Hal’s normal 
life. First, Petey’s stepfather Ted (Elijah Wood) announces his plans to adopt him, making this the last time Hal will see him. Second, a series of terrible events are killing countless people in and around the town he grew up in. Can Hal find that damned Monkey and stop it from killing someone else? And can he simultaneously spend his last days with his son while keeping him out of danger?
The Monkey is a shocking and disgustingly hilarious movie about an evil toy and the people it affects. It’s done in a retro style, like Mad Magazine meets the Twilight Zone. It’s directed by Oz Perkins, known for his stylized movies that feel like fairytales (Gretel and Hansel) or nightmares (Longlegs). With this one, based on a short story by Stephen King, he seems to have found a happy medium. Simultaneously comical and grotesque, you watch the movie waiting with baited breath for the next disaster to happen. Theo James is perfect as the hapless Hal, but so is every other character in this weird movie, each given their own minute of ghastly glory: a pawn shop owner, a girl gang, a real estate agent, a pot dealer, a televangelist… it’s a limitless, mind-blowing romp. The Monkey is grotesque comedy/horror at its peak.
I love this movie.
Parthenope, The Unbreakable Boy, and The Monkey all open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Odd relationships. Films reviewed: Touch, Katie’s Mom, Longlegs
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The 22nd annual Female Eye Film Festival starts on Wednesday and runs through the weekend, showing short films, docs and features all directed by women. Films come from as far away as Kyrgyzstan and as close as right here, with CIUT’s own Christian Hamilton’s short film “Just Grand” in the Thrills & Chills program.
But this week, I’m looking at three new movies — a romantic comedy, a drama and a thriller horror — all about unexpected relationships. There’s an Icelander in London with a crush on his boss’s daughter; a divorcee in Pasadena who has a fling with her daughter’s lover; and an FBI agent with a mysterious connection to a serial killer.
Touch
Co-Wri/Dir: Baltasar Kormákur
It’s early 2020 in Iceland. Kristófer (Egill Ólafsson) is a restauranteur and a choir singer approaching retirement. He is awaiting the results of a brain scan. And with rumours of an upcoming pandemic his late wife’s daughter warns him to shelter at home. But he is driven by a quest he has thought about for half a century.
50 years ago, the younger Kristófer (Palmi Kormákur, the director’s son) is an earnest student at the London School of Economics. He is tall and skinny with blonde hair and a wispy beard. He is disgusted by the political indifference of his classmates. So he drops out and applies at the first help wanted sign he sees — a small Japanese restaurant called Nippon, run by a plain-spoken man named Takahashi (Masahiro Motoki, a.k.a. モックン). And as he walks through the door he catches sight of a beautiful young woman with pale skin and long black hair. Is it love at first sight? Her name is Miko, (Kôki) she’s 
Takahashi’s daughter, and she’s dating a Japanese man. Beneath his gruff exterior Takahashi is a nice guy — he appreciates the fact Kristofer grew up beside the sea and worked on a fishing boat. But he is extremely protective of his daughter, for unspoken reasons. When Kristofer and Miko fall in love they keep it a secret from Takahashi… until the restaurant suddenly closes down and Miko disappears without a trace. Is she still alive and in London? Can he find her during a pandemic? And would she even remember who he is?
Touch is an extremely moving, bittersweet drama that spans half a century. It alternately follows both the young Kristófer’s first love in London in 1970 and the elderly Kristófer’s search for Miko in 2020. It’s based on an Icelandic bestseller, and has novelistic feel to it. It also deals with prejudice, exclusion, biracial families and historical wrongs. Touch is directed by Baltasar Kormákur, an underrated director if there ever was one, who has made a series of successful mainstream action thrillers (Reviews: Beast, 2 Guns and Contraband, but this heartfelt drama is a cut above. And by the end, tears were pouring down both sides of my face.
Katie’s Mom
Co-Wri/Dir: Tyrrell Shaffner
It’s present-day Pasadena. Nancy (Dina Meyer), is bored, lonely and angry. Bored because she’s in her 40s and single again, through no fault of her own. Sex is a distant memory. She thinks autoerotic stimulation means driving through a carwash… twice. Lonely because her two adult kids, Katie (Julia Tolchin) and Eli (Colin Bates) have moved out and she only sees them on holidays. And she’s much too embarrassed to spend any time with friends, now that she’s divorced. And angry because her ex-husband Morty, a plastic surgeon, dumped her for his much younger secretary and now they’re going to get married. So when both her kids show up for the Chrismukkah dinner (that’s Christmas and Chanukah on the same day) she finally feels things are getting better. But Katie has a surprise: she brought her new boyfriend Alex (Aaron Dominguez) with her and he needs a place to stay.
Things become even more frustrating when she hears Katie and Alex having sex each night. She’s ready to kick him out… but it turns out Alex is a really nice guy. He cooks and does the dishes without being asked. He’s an architecture student and actually listens to what Nancy has to say. Most important, she finds him very attractive. And the feelings seem mutual. But of course she could never sleep with her daughter’s boyfriend, could she? Or could she? And when her fantasies turn into reality, she doesn’t know which way to turn. Who can she tell? Is this a one time fling? And what will happen if Katie ever finds out?
Katie’s Mom is a light romantic comedy that’s funny and cute. It’s 
about a middle-aged woman’s sexual awakening held back by familial obligations and social norms. It features a solid comic performance by Julia Tolchin and a charming Aaron Dominguez. But Dina Meyer — known for her smoking-hot performance in Starship Troopers in 1997 — is still on fire 30 years later. The filmmaker compares it to The Graduate, but from Mrs Robinson’s point of view. I wouldn’t go that far — and it’s no spoiler to say Dustin Hoffman ain’t storming no wedding doors here. But it’s a fun, inter-generational romcom told from a much-needed female point of view.
Longlegs
Wri/Dir: Oz Perkins
It’s the early 1990s. Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is a rookie FBI agent, quiet and introspective somewhere pn the spectrum, the product of a bible-thumping mom (Alicia Witt). She is one of many agents working on an open case involving a serial killer. The killer has slaughtered a large number of families over two decades, but he is very hard to profile. No witnesses, no photos, no fingerprints.
The killer — nicknamed Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) has entered each of his murder sites unimpeded. And in every case, the killings— always involving a husband, a wife, and a young daughter — seem to have been done by the families themselves. And the killer always leaves a cryptic letter — written in code — behind. The Agency has reason to believe another killing is imminent, but of all the agents, only Lee, on a hunch, is able to interrupt one of these ghoulish killings as it takes place. She is subjected to a battery of psychological tests… How did she know where to go? Is she psychic? Lee and her boss, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) take over the case. She spends countless nights poring over files, trying to connect the dots. And as she comes closer to tracking down Longlegs her own long-hidden memories start coming back. Has she ever seen him in person? And if so what did he look like? And can she stop the killings?
Longlegs is a creepy and shocking thriller horror. It shares themes with Silence of the Lambs (a female FBI agent looking for a 
deranged killer) and Zodiac (the killer leaves notes written in abstract characters). But it differs from conventional horror movies with its art-house production style. No typical jump scares or schlocky effects. The photography and lighting is soooo good, with jagged angles and sharp shapes. Many shots are lit by a single light source. She lives in a home that looks like a log cabin. Director Oz Perkins revisits his own past themes (review: Gretel and Hansel) with inverted triangles and odd illuminati. Maika Monroe is excellent as the scared agent as is Alicia Witt as her religion-obsessed mom. While a freakout scene by Nicholas Cage is nothing unusual, this one will stick in your mind for a long time. And though at times it verges on the ridiculous, I found Longlegs’ suspense and scariness completely satisfying.
Touch and Longlegs both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Katie’s Mom is the Gala Feature at the opening ceremony of FEFF at the TIFF Lightbox next Thursday.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Away from home. Films reviewed: Gretel and Hansel, The Rhythm Section, Rosie
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
If you live in Toronto, you have probably noticed that unscrupulous landlords, soaring rents and loopholes like “renoviction” and “demoviction” are driving tenants out of the city. Isn’t housing a human right? So this week I’m looking at three new movies about young women looking for a home. There’s a mother of four who lost possession of her house, a sister and brother lost in the woods; and a university student who lost her entire family in suspicious circumstances.
Gretel and Hansel
Dir: Oz Perkins
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there was a famine in the land and people were starving. Little Hansel and Gretel live with their mother in a small house. Gretel, aged 16 (Sophia Lillis) keeps her brother happy by telling him fairytales before he goes to sleep. But when their mother, crazed with hunger, attacks them with an axe, Gretel knows it’s time to go. She grabs eight-year-old Hansel (Samuel Leakey) and flees into the woods. Perhaps they can find work at a lumber camp (their late father was a 
woodcutter.) No such luck. But they do find a strange pointy house painted black, with the aromas of delicious food wafting out. Hansel sneaks in through a window and starts gorging on all the cakes and tarts, the roasts and stews he finds there. Gretel is more cautious — there’s no such thing a free lunch.
Turns out it’s the home of an old crone with wrinkled skin, and fingers dyed black (Alice Krige). She invites the kids to stay with her in their own room. And she teaches Gretel how to mix potions using her book of spells; She has magic powers — that’s why she lives in the woods. 
Men don’t like women who know too much. And says Gretel is just like her; she has to harness her magic abilities. But Gretel knows something is wrong. Where does all this food come from? Why is she having dreams about crying children? What’s happening to Hansel? And what’s behind that hidden door in the pantry?
Gretel & Hansel is a reboot of the famous Brothers Grimm fairy tale and it’s no spoiler to say it sticks to the basic story. Differences include their parents don’t abandon them in the woods, they don’t leave a trail to find their way home, and the witch’s house isnt made of gingerbread. On the plus side there’s a feminist coming-of-age theme and Alice Krige is terrific as the Witch. Minuses include gratuitous references to The Wizard of Oz, accents that keep changing… and what’s with the pig-snort sounds all the characters keep making? I don’t get it. I love the look of this low budget film — from triangular spyholes to the witch’s forked staff like a divining rod — and the neat symmetry of the plot.
If you love fairytales, you might want to check this one out.
The Rhythm Section
Dir: Reed Morano
Stephanie (Blake Lively) used to be a star student at Oxford. But when he entire family died in a plane crash, her life fell apart. Now she’s a junkie, turning tricks at a low-rent brothel in London, earning just enough to pay for her next fix. Until… she meets a freelance journalist (Raza Jaffrey) who tells her the plane crash wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate, th killer is still out there, and a vast conspiracy is covering it all up. So she makes her way to northern scotland to track down the source. There she is attacked from 
behind by a mysterious bearded man.
He’s a rogue MI6 agent (Jude Law) who knows exactly what happened. She wants revenge on whoever killed her family. He agrees to train her in a violent one-on-one boot camp as long as she does what he says. Soon she’s working as a hitman flying from Tangier to Berlin, New York to Marseilles to knock off various criminals and spies. And a former CIA agent Mark Serra (Sterling K Brown) sends her from place to place. Who is she really working for? Will she find the killer she’s looking for? And are the men she meets on the way potential lovers, 
damgerous killers… or both?
The Rhythm Section is a so-so action thriller in the manner of the Bourne series. It has some tense moments a few life-and-death fights, and lots of great chase scenes. And the weird, twisting camera work pulls you into Stephanie’s panicked and confused mood (though I was getting carsick after a while). Blake Lively and Jude Law both play against type as violent, stone-cold killers, and are believable. My biggest problems? It was impossible to tell the good guys from the bad guys, the politics are confused, there’s no originality, and the story is extremely muddy. I don’t expect much from an action/thriller, but they really should clean up the plot and make the characters less robotic if they want to turn it into a series.
Rosie
Dir: Paddy Breathnach (Viva)
Wri: Roddy Doyle
It’s present-day Dublin.
Rosie Davis (Sarah Greene) is a devoted young mother with four adorable kids (first time actors Ellie O’Halloran, Ruby Dunne, Darragh McKenzie and Molly McCann) ranging from toddler to tween. Kayleigh concentrates on her homework, Millie is the shy one, Alfie loves bouncing around, and Madison is fine as long as she has her stuffed bunny. Since her husband John Paul (Moe Dunford) works late at a restaurant kitchen, it’s up to Rosie to get the kids fed, cleaned, bathed, brought to school and back, comforted and tucked into bed at night… an almost 
impossible task.
So imagine what happens when their landlord suddenly evicts them from their own rented home — what can they do? Now her number-one task is finding a place to stay. But with a concert in town, and all the hotels booked solid where can they find a room? Can she keep their kids’ lives normal without anyone noticing they’re suddenly homeless?
Rosie is an intensely personal, hyperrealistic look at a day and half in the lives of a family in crisis. Viewers are dropped right into the middle of their lives, a short peek at an ongoing crisis. It’s about love, pride, poverty, 
family, bullying and homelessness, and the fraying social welfare state. It’s filmed with a closeup, handheld camera capturing the cramped claustrophobic setting and the degree of tension they face. It’s sentimental but not cloying, and Sarah Greene is fantastic in the main role. Rosie is intense and will probably make you cry, but if you’re in the mood for some kitchen-sink realism, this is the one to see.
Gretel and Hansel, The Rhythm Section and Rosie all open today 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 .
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