Dysfunctional Dystopia? Films reviewed: Sentimental Value, The Running Man, Left-Handed Girl
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Still more Fall film festivals coming at you in Toronto, with the EU film fest — free films from each country of the European Union, plus Ukraine — and Ekran, the Polish Film Festival. So much to see, but look out for Agnieszaka Holland’s biopic of Franz Kafka (called Franz) at Ekran.
But this week, I’m looking at three great new movies, one action and two dramas. There’s an estranged family in Oslo; a fugitive on the run in a dystopian America, and a dysfunctional family in Taipei, Taiwan.
Sentimental Value
Co-Wri/Dir: Joachim Trier
Nora Borg (Renate Reinsve) is a successful stage actress who lives in a grand old house in Oslo. It’s been in her family for generations: it’s where her grandmother killed herself, and where she grew up with her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) and their mom. Their dad, Gustav, (Stellan Skarsgård) disappeared after their divorce when she was still young, and they haven’t heard much from him in decades. Until now. Their mom just died and she and her sister have to deal with the house and go through all their family’s possessions (that’s the “sentimental value” of the title). And dad owns part of the house, too. But he has a second reason for showing up.
He wants to make a movie there, to use the house as his set. He’s a famous film director, but not in his prime anymore; he hasn’t shot a movie in decades. And he wants Nora in the main role of what is likely his swan song. You’re the only one who can do it, he says, just read the script! Nora refuses; bad blood runs deep. So, partly to get the funding he needs to make the picture, Gustav casts a Hollywood actress to play the role that Nora turned down. Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) is a big name, and she’s also a fan of Gustav’s work. What will happen to the house? Will Gustav make his film? And will they ever be on speaking terms again?
Sentimental Value is dramatic comedy about a Norwegian family. It’s full of clever asides and wide-ranging topics, but with a solid core at its centre. What makes Trier such a good director (The Worst Person in the World, Thelma, Oslo August 31st) is he creates believable characters in tough situations but without losing his sense of humour. He constantly plays around with his audience as to what is real and what is 
artifice: we see Nora having a deep, emotional breakdown and then discover she’s acting a role on a stage set. He also uses biting satire to get his points across, skewering the superficiality of both Hollywood and bourgeois Norwegian society. He also repeatedly casts from a company of actors in his films. Elle Fanning and Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård are new, but Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie are familiar faces if you’ve ever seen Trier’s movies (and if you haven’t, you should).
Sentimental Value is moving, funny and full of good stuff to think about. I really liked this one.
The Running Man
Co-Wri/Dir: Edgar Wright
Based on a story by Steven King
It’s some point in the not-so-distant future in a dystopian America. A few rich people live luxurious lives, but the majority eke out a precarious existence within the endless sprawl of urban slums. They’re constantly surveilled by cameras, drones and DNA detectors while a brutal paramilitary police force patrols the streets. What keeps the people satisfied? Watching the reality shows and game shows broadcast from a single, big-brother-like monopoly network which controls the government, big business and media.
Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is a skilled labourer and union rep. He also has a volatile temper. He points out dangerous problems on the shop floor, which in this world gets you fired. So he’s out of work, his wife depends on tips in a hostess bar, and their 5 year old daughter is dying of an ordinary flu because they can’t afford basic medicine. What to do? There’s only one choice left: compete on THE RUNNING MAN, a reality show where all contestants try to survive for 30 days being hunted by a gang of professional killers. The winner gets a huge cash prize. And the losers pay with their lives. Luckily, the show’s producer, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) takes a liking to Ben Richards — he’s smart, strong and most of all, angry! And the audience starts to like him… and his messages of rebellion. Can Ben outsmart the powers that be and survive? Or will the Network crush him, like they did with every Runner before him?
The Running Man is a non-stop action movie, with good 
acting and an interesting plot. It’s set in the future, but done in a 1980s style, with zines, nerds and gadgets over spacemen and phasers. There are chase scenes using planes, trains and automobiles, and fiery explosions that level a city block. Glen Powell is wonderful in the lead role, appealing and heroic, painted like a Luigi Mangione fighting the corporate super-villain played by a slimy Josh Brolin. Director Edgar Wright — who brought us Toronto’s greatest Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe — keeps it funny and nerdy; he even casts Michael Cera as a nerdy revolutionary.
The Running Man is a lot of fun to watch.
Left-Handed Girl
Co-Wri/Dir: Shih-Ching Tsou
It’s Taipei’s night market, and a small family is moving into a tiny apartment nearby: I-Jing (Nina Ye) a little girl with a wild imagination, I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) a diffident teenager with a chip on her shoulder, and their hardworking mom (Janel Tsai). She’s opening up a noodle stall to pay their basic rent cheque. Dad is nowhere to be seen; he ran off years ago, leaving the family high and dry. I-Jing quickly adjusts to her new kindergarten class and life in the constantly-moving marketplace. She even helps Johnny (Brando Huang) — a huckster with a heart of gold who sells carnival junk to unsuspecting shoppers — by making announcements on his loudspeaker. Mom is constantly busy, cooking and cleaning her stall, but can’t seem to earn a living. She also takes time to visit her ex-husband, now dying of cancer in hospital. Sadly he leaves his 
abandoned family nothing but funeral debts and a pet meerkat. And I-Ann — who was once top of her class until she suddenly dropped out — works as a scantily-clad “betel nut beauty” selling smokes and the addictive chewing treat from her boyfriend’s shop.
But things get tense when the kids’ Mom is forced to visit their grandparents to ask for some money to tide them over. Mom’s brother is the golden boy who can do no wrong, and her two sisters both live in nice houses and are unsympathetic about her economic condition. And worst of all is grandpa, who scolds i-Jing for being left handed. He tells her left hand belongs to the devil (which she interprets as having an evil hand over which she has no control.) Now grandma is smuggling migrants through airports, mom faves eviction from the market, I-Ann missed her last period, and tiny I-Jing is turning into an avid shoplifter, using her “devil’s hand” to do the dirty work. Can this dysfunctional family ever pull itself back together?
Left-Handed Girl is a social drama about a family of women living on the brink. It’s tender, shocking and hilarious. It’s full of fast, clang-y music, flashy lights and hyper-saturated colour. It’s specifically Taiwanese in details (from bubble tea to class snobbery) but universal in its emotional appeal. And it’s co-written and edited by Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket, Anora), who swept the Oscars last year with Anora. The characters speak Chinese but it’s clearly a Sean Baker movie, full of imperfect women in precarious times. And its Taiwanese-American director Shih-Ching Tsou worked on all of Baker’s films, so this is part of a long term partnership, with her taking the helm. And it’s Taiwan’s selection for best international Oscar.
I loved Left-Handed Girl, too.
Sentimental Value — opening this weekend — and Left-Handed Girl — next weekend — both played at TIFF. And The Running Man is now playing across Canada; 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.
TIFF24! Films reviewed: The Substance, Anora PLUS curtain-raisers
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival is now in full swing, showing films from around the world — basically what you’ll be seeing in local theatres over the next year or so. Though tickets have gotten a bit pricey and are hard to get, there are still some free screenings, and you can also stand in line for rush tickets even if they’re sold out. Meanwhile King Street West between University and Spadina is closed to traffic this weekend, and worth checking out — lots of games, free samples, drinks, food, and endless fans looking for a glance at celebrities.
So this week I’ll talk briefly about some TIFF movies to look out for, as well as two TIFF reviews. There’s an exotic dancer who meets a young Russian in Coney Island, and a TV dancercise star who meets her better self in Hollywood.
Curtain raisers
Here are a few movies coming to TIFF that look good.
Triumph, set in post communist Bulgaria, is about some high-ranking military brass on a top-secret mission to find a powerful, secret chamber, with the help of a psychic.
The Brutalist starring Adrian Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce, is a drama about a post-WWII Hungarian architect brought to America by a powerful industrialist who will change his and his wife’s lives forever.
Diciannove, is a first feature about a 19 year old man leaving Sicily to satisfy his obsession with 19th century (and older) literature.
And We Live In Time, starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield as two people who meet at random and form a couple.
These are just a few of many movies premiering at TIFF.
Anora
Wri/Dir: Sean Baker (reviews: Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket)
Ani (Mikey Madison) is an exotic dancer in her early twenties. She lives with her sister in a small house in Brooklyn. When she’s not performing on stage or doing lap dances in private rooms, she’s probably talking to her friends in the green room. Her best friend works there, and so does rival frenemy. Her whole life is centred on this nightclub, until one night when she is requested to handle a client who specifically wants a Russian-speaking dancer. Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn)
is just a kid, barely legal. After they have fun in the back, he invites her to spend a weekend at his house. It’s a mammoth gated mansion with huge windows and designer furniture. His king sized bed has red silk sheets, and they make love all night long. She meets his coney island entourage and his moustached body guard. Ivan is infatuated with Anora and she likes him a lot, too. On a whim, he flies them all to Vegas on a private jet where he claims his own special suite at a casino. Ivan throws $1000 chips on the table like petty cash. Then this kid buys Ani a huge diamond ring and a sable coat before he proposes. They are married the same day. What she doesn’t realize is he’s the son of an immemsely rich and powerful Russian oligarch. All this money and possessions belong to his parents and they want him back in Russia. They’re flying back to NY to annul the wedding and three tough guys arrive to keep them 
company. Is this legal? And can Ivan and Ani escape from their clutches?
Anora is a fantastic, high-speed adventure, full of emotion, humour, thrills, a bit of violence and lots and lots of sex. Mikey Madison is amazing as the tough but tender Anora, and newcomer Mark Eydelshteyn bounces around like a bag of springs waiting to uncoil. All of Sean Baker’s movies — Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket — are about sex work, and are always told from the point of view of the sex workers themselves. But Anora goes far beyond his previous work in both depth and feelings.
Rarely do I walk out of a movie thinking I want to watch this one again. Anora is that good.
The Substance
Wri/Dir: Coralie Fargeat
Elisabeth Sparkle (Deni Moore) is a TV star. She’s the queen of primetime dancercise, and has millions of fans. She’s been pumping away at it for decades in her trademark lycra leotards. She wears brightly coloured designer fashion, drives a snazzy convertible, and lives in a luxurious penthouse suite facing an enormous rooftop billboard with her smiling face and fit body staring back at her. But one day she overhears her oleaginous producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) talking about her behind her back. To hell with ratings, he says, she’s jumped the shark. We need someone younger and prettier. Is her time running out?
She gets so flustered that she crashes her beautiful sports car and 
ends up in hospital. Miraculously, she escaped without a scratch, but an unnaturally handsome young medic, slips her a note. It’s a secret clinic where scientists have concocted a substance that can develop a “better” version of yourself — prettier, younger, and with more sex appeal — to keep you on top of your game. And after some misgivings, she follows the instructions to a secret place where she picks up the stuff. What she doesn’t realize is, it doesn’t actually make you any younger looking or prettier. No, it creates a fully formed body double to take your place. Sue (Margaret Qualley) takes over in public and lands a TV show to replace Elisabeth Sparkle. But like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, they alternate, one sleeps while the other one plays. And if either of them disobey any of the rules around the substance… bad things happen to them both.
The Substance is a cautionary tale about Hollywood’s extreme infatuation toward youth and beauty. It is shocking, disgusting and amazing. Quaid and Qualley are both great but if anyone understands Hollywood’s obsession with youth and beauty it’s Demi Moore. In 1991, she appeared naked while pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair under the headline More Demi Moore. In 2005, she married Ashton Kutcher, 15 years younger than her. In this movie she’s allowed to take it to extreme proportions — no spoilers — toward a totally over-the-top ending. Director Coralie Fargeat is French, and though the cast and topic are American, it uses a quintessentially French female gaze. There’s a grotesque obsession with food, and who but a French would imagine an American network TV show on New Year’s Eve featuring topless Folies Bergeres dancers?!
Don’t get me wrong, this is an extreme movie, but it is also like nothing you’ve ever seen.
Anora and The Substance are both featured at TIFF this year — go to tiff.net for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Men on the Run. Films reviewed: Flee, Red Rocket, Nightmare Alley
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
With Award Season quickly approaching — from the Golden Globes to the Golden Turkeys — the studios are releasing a lot of its big ticket movies in hopes of being considered for some of the major prizes up for grabs. This week I’m looking at three potential Oscar nominations, all stories about men trying to flee from their dark pasts for a potentially better future. There’s a man who leaves a burning house to join the circus, a middle-aged porn star who leaves LA to find a job in small-town Texas, and a young man who runs for his life from Afghanistan in hopes of finding a better one in Europe.
Red Rocket
Co-Wri/Dir: Sean Baker
Mikey Sabre (Simon Rex) is down on his luck. He was an LA porn star in his heyday, along with his wife,
Lexi (Bree Elrod). But the good times are long gone. Now he’s back home in Texas City, Texas, with no money, no possessions, no reputation, the prodigal husband knocking at his ex-wife’s door. Naturally she and her mother, Lil (Brenda Deiss) want nothing to do with him, but he manages to sweet talk his way into letting him sleep on their couch. And after an exhausting search for employment — no one will hire a former sex worker — he falls back on his teenage job as a pot dealer. And soon enough, with the help of his blue happy pills, he’s sleeping wth Lexi again each night. But everything changes when he meets a beautiful naive young woman with red hair, who works at the local donut shop. Her name is Strawberry (Suzanna Son), who loves pink hearts and everything sweet. Mikey becomes infatuated by her, both as a focus of his lust and his imagined ticket to wealth. He tells her 
he’ll take her away from this dead-end town and introduce her to the top names in Hollywood porn, after, of course, she turns 18. Wait… what?
Red Rocket is an outrageous comedy about the misadventures of a former male porn star, including an extended across town by a panicking naked Mikey brandishing his Sabre. This is Sean Baker’s third such film — Tangerine about two black transwomen 
in LA, and The Florida Project, told through the eyes of kids in Orlando — shot, guerilla-style, on location on a budget using mainly first-time actors (who, I have to say, are all great!) And he helps normalize marginal sex workers by defying the usual stereotypes. At the same time, a movie about a predatory 40-year-old guy seducing a Lolita-like teenaged girl is not the same as rambunctious kids in Florida or wisecracking transwomen in LA. Don’t worry, everyone gets their comeuppance in the end, but Red Rocket will make you squirm and cringe uncomfortably along the way.
Flee
Co-Wri/Dir: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Amin is born in Kabul where he grows up under communist rule, watching Bruce Lee movies and dancing to pop music on his walkman. Now he lives in Copenhagen with Kasper, his lover — they’re thinking of buying a house in the countryside. After that is, he finishes his post-doctoral work at Princeton. But how did he get from Afghanistan to Denmark? When the US-backed Mujahideen invaded Kabul his family is forced to flee. Russia is the only place offering a tourist visa — but Moscow is a mess; the the Soviet Union has just collapsed and is now run by oligarchs and corrupt police. Now they’re stuck in limbo, supported by his older brother a janitor in Sweden. Can the 
family stay together? Can they ever make it to somewhere safe? Or will unscrupulous human traffickers lead them to disaster?
Flee is a deeply moving drama about one man’s journey as a refugee from danger to sanctuary, and all the moral 
compromises he is forced to make along the way. It’s sort of a documentary, in that it’s a true story told by the man it happened to, even though it’s voiced by actors using animated characters. And by animation, I don’t mean cute animals with big eyes, I mean lovely, hand-made drawings that portray what actually happened. Far from being the heavy, ponderous lesson I was dreading, Flee has a wonderfully surprising story, elegantly told.
Nightmare Alley
Co-Wri/Dir: Guillermo del Toro
It’s the dustbowl during the Great Depression. Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) is a bright and fit young man with great ambitions and a shady past. Leaving a dead man in a burnt house behind him, he sets out to find his fortune He comes upon a circus, and makes his way through the tents to Nightmare Alley, the area where the carnies do their work out of sight. He gets hired as a roustabout, hammering nails, pitching tents, but soon rises quickly within the circus ranks. Zeena the Seer (Toni Collette) seduces him, and in return she provides access to her partner Ezra (Richard Jenkins) an aging alcoholic. Ezra holds a little black book outlining exactly
how to con strangers out of their money by convincing them you can read their minds and talk to the dead. But he warns Stan, don’t fall into the trap of believing you it’s real — that can kill you. Meanwhile, Stan only has eyes for the beautiful and innocent Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara), the electric woman. She’s fiercely defended by the other carnies, but they let her go when she says they’re in love.
They move to the big city where they find great success in their 
psychic act. Stan loves their new rich lifestyle, while Molly pines for her previously life at the circus. But trouble brews in the form of a femme fatale, a beautiful blonde woman with an ivory-handled gun who attends one of their acts. Dr Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) is a successful psychoanalyst who listens to — and records — the confessions of the richest and most powerful men in the city… and she is intrigued by Stan’s psychic abilities. (She completely ignores Molly). Perhaps they can combine their resources for even greater success?
Nightmare Alley is a dark movie about an ambitious but ruthless man in his quest for success. Bradley Cooper is credible in the lead, but even better are all the supporting actors, from Willem Dafoe to Cate Blanchett. It has a novelistic storyline with a plethora of characters, almost like a classic Hollywood film, 
which makes sense. Based on a novel, it’s a remake of the 1949 film noir of the same name, starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell. And it fits perfectly in del Toro’s body of work, with his love of freaks, legerdemain, underdogs, young women with pageboy haircuts, and of course many actors who 
appeared in his previous films. Guillermo del Toro (who shoots his movies in studios and locations around Toronto) has a troupe of actors he uses over and over, like Ron Perlman, dating back to his earliest movies. NIghtmare Alley is quite long — two and a half hours — but kept my attention all the way to a perfectly twisted finish. It’s a good, classic drama.
I quite like this one.
Red Rocket, Flee and Nightmare Alley all theatrically in Toronto this weekend; 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
And two more: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, The Florida Project
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
I’m back again because it’s a bumper crop this week, and there are two more great movies opening today that deserve to be seen. One takes place in the shadows of Disneyworld, the other reveals the origins of Wonder Woman.
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
Wri/Dir: Angela Robinson
It’s the 1920s at a prestigious University. William Marston (Luke Evans) is a Harvard-trained psychologist who lives and works alongside his brilliant wife Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall). They are both outspoken advocates for women’s rights and create the world’s first lie detector. But when William takes on a young research assistant named Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote), Elizabeth suspects hanky-panky. So what a surprise when they all answer intimate questions about their truest feelings and desires using the lie detector: Olive desires both William and Elizabeth! And the feelings are mutual. They form a triad – a polyamorous relationship – among the three of them. To the outside world 
they are a married couple with their widowed relative, but behind closed doors anything goes. The three move into a large house and raise their children together, exploring new sexual avenues – including role play and BDSM — while the kids are away at school. But when their secret is revealed and he loses his job, Marston is forced to look for new ways to earn a living. So he creates the world’s first feminist superhero, Wonder Woman, based on the two women in his life. Her outfit is inspired by clothing they see at Greenwich Village fetish shop, and the Lasso of Truth is a combination of bondage and lie detectors.
Professor Marston and the Womder Women tells the delightful and always surprising love story about the origins of a superhero before she was whitewashed into blandness and conformity.
The Florida Project
Dir: Sean Baker
Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) Jancey (Valeria Cotto) Scooty (Christopher Rivera) are three little kids who live in the giant pink motels that dot the highways around Disneyland in Orlando Florida. They spit off balconies, explore junk piles and panhandle tourists for ice cream. Though rundown, the motels serve as a community and home for the nearly homeless and marginal. They are forced to vacate their rooms weekly and relocate – they’re not allowed to call their homes home. They are all 
looked after by the stern but benevolent manager Bobby (Willem Dafoe)
Halley, Moony’s mom (Bria Vinaite) earns her living reselling wholesale perfume bottles or turning the occasional trick. Other moms work as waitresses or as de facto daycare, just trying to keep the kids fed and out of trouble. And boy do these kids get in trouble. Abut when something serious 
happens, the delicate balance between parents and kids quickly falls apart.
The Florida project is a fascinating look at the poor and marginal people around Orlando, in a private hotel that functions like a housing project, Florida-style The kids are great, although occasionally prone to cuting-it-up for the camera. And the raw, beautiful camerawork, crumbling houses against a tropical sunset, give it an immediate, authentic feel. Great movie.
The Florida Project and Professor Marston and the Wonder Women both open today in Toronto. This is Daniel Garber at the movies each Friday morning for CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Scoundrels, Nazis and Pimps — the world’s worst lovers. Movies reviewed: Tangerine, Madame Bovary, Suite Française
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Some relationships just don’t work – you look back and wonder what possessed you. But then there are the ones that everyone knows should never have happened. This week I’m looking at new movies about women who make terrible choices in lovers. There’s a middle-class woman in 19th century France who falls for rich scoundrels; a woman in 1940s France who falls for a Nazi, and a woman in contemporary LA who falls for a pimp.
Tangerine
Dir: Sean Baker
It’s Christmas Eve in LA. Sin-Dee and Alexandra (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor)
are best friends who work in the sex trade on the streets of Hollywood. Alexandra wants to be a professional singer, while Sin-Dee (short for Cinderella) just wants her Prince Charming. But Chester (James Ransone) is hardly a prince. He’s a white pimp/ drug dealer in an electric blue hoody, as skeezy as they
come. But he says he’ll marry her. So she is not a happy camper when she hears he’s been sleeping with another woman. And not just any woman –one who’s white and cis-female (both Sin-Dee and Alexandra are black and transgender). So she heads out to find Dinah, the strung-out blonde (Mickey O’Hagen) and set her straight.
Meanwhile, Razmik (Karren Karagulian) is an Armenian cab driver who frequents the same hood. He’s married with a kid, but would rather spend Christmas with people like Sin-Dee and Alexandra. His wife doesn’t care, but his mother-in-law suspects something is up. So she heads out to catch Razmik in the act. Things come to a head when all the characters converge on a Hollywood donut shop.
Will the cheaters come clean and the liars tell the truth?
Tangerine is a low-key, low-budget indie look at the streets of LA. It concentrates on the funnier aspects but doesn’t shirk on the grittiness and precariousness of people’s lives. The cast is uniformly good, especially stately, elegant Mya Taylor and wild-child Kitana Kiki Roidriguez. Does Tangerine perpetuate negative stereotypes of transwomen? Perhaps, but since the performances are so sympathetic and well-rounded it feels real, not exploitative. This is a good one.
Madame Bovary
Dir: Sophie Barthes
19th century Normandy, near Rouen. Beautiful but naïve Emma (Mia Wasikowska) is a woman raised in a convent who is married to a simple country doctor. He’s boring, unambitious and a bit of a prig. He says beds are for patients, not doctors. And Emma soon discovers that means beds are for sleeping, not for good sex. So she’s left alone all day with nothing to do.
Soon enough there is a parade of men at her door promising a better life. 
Monsieur Lhereux (Rhys Ifans) is an oleaginous salesman who tempts her with Parisian fashions and golden candlesticks. She has to look good if she wants her life to improve. And never mind the cost – she can buy whatever she wants on credit! Uh oh…Leon (Ezra Miller) is the last romantic, an aesthete with delicate features. Won’t she go for a walk with him? Cynical Homais (Paul Giamatti) says he will help them climb the ladder to success, if they just take some risks. Then there’s the Marquis 
(Logan Marshall Green), a local rake who takes her for hunting, with horn and hound. He sends her love letters and says she can run off and live in his castle. Will Madame Bovary find her true love? Or will she succumb to trickery… and inescapable debt?
Madame Bovary – based on the famous novel by Flaubert — is a cautionary tale about the dangers of upward mobility. This film is a straightforward retelling of the story. But it reveals the tragic ending in the very first scene. I guess the director assumes everyone knows the story already so it can’t be a spoiler… but at least she should pretend to be interested. As it is, this movie is devoid of suspense, humour and passion. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters – they aren’t even particularly likeable. Though visually stunning and rich in detail (it’s like a work of art to watch), this movie doesn’t have much else going for it.
(L-R) MATTHIAS SCHOENAERTS and MICHELLE WILLIAMS star in SUITE FRANÇAISE
Suite Française
Dir: Saul Dibb
It’s France in the 1940s, right after the German invasion. Pretty, young Lucille (Michelle Williams) lives in Bussy, a suburban town just east of Paris. She barely knew her husband Gaston before he was sent off to fight in the war. Now she lives with her unfriendly mother-in-law (Kristin Scott Thomas), a prosperous landholder, on her country estate. And – despite the refugees pouring out of Paris, scared for their lives – Lucille’s mother-in-law is doing quite nicely, thank you. She has even raised the rent of her long-time tenant farmers, even pushing them out of their homes to make room for desperate refugees with more money. But when the Germans arrive, everything changes. They are forced to share their home with Lieutenant Bruno, a handsome aristocrat (Matthias Schoenarts). He seems like a nice man, fond of classical piano music. He plays one song – the Suite Française of the title – that she’s never heard before. (Lucille studied music before the war.) She is forbidden to speak with him… but sharing intimate quarters leads to an increasing familiarity between the two.
MICHELLE WILLIAMS stars in SUITE FRANÇAISE
Meanwhile, farmers Madeleine and Benoit (Ruth Wilson, Sam Riley) are forced to accommodate their own lieutenant, the cruel and vindictive Kurt (Tom Schilling). Benoit wasn’t drafted because he walks with a limp, but he hates the Germans with a passion. And when he sees the officer making passes at his own wife, he’s furious. He locates a hidden rifle, and sets out to defend both his honour and his country.
And as the story develops, the true nature of the characters reveal themselves, and we begin to question our first impressions of who is good and who is bad.
The film is an adaptation of the novel by Irene Nemirovsky written while the war was still going on. She was killed in a Nazi concentration camp but the manuscript was hidden for 60 years. It was rediscovered and published as a bestseller just ten years ago. It makes an engrossing romantic historical drama. The acting is terrific, especially Kristin Scott Thomas as the mother-in-law, as well as the farm family. It’s a rare look at the war seen while it was taking place. I liked this film a lot.
Madame Bovary and Suite Française starts today in Toronto, check your local listings; Tangerine opens next Friday. Also now playing is the documentary Deep Web, about the dark side, online. I interviewed director Alex Winter during Hot Docs.
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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