Linklater Deepens Cinema’s Greatest Romance With Trilogy-Capping “Before Midnight”

After showcasing Vienna and Paris in the first two films, Before
Midnight takes place in Greece.

Every movie fan has more than a few films that their embarrassed to say they haven’t actually seen. For some reason, even though we all manage to catch up with our fair share of obvious duds like Baby Geniuses or Boat Trip, a multitude of true classics always fall through the cracks.

Despite my love for cinema and the crazy amount of time I spend on it, my list is still quite extensive. It’s probably no surprise that I haven’t seen many of the foreign classics by the likes of Godard, Traffaut, Bergman, and Fellini, but there are plenty of American films I’ve missed as well. For instance, although I’m a huge fan of the Godfather and have seen it about a dozen times, I’ve never actually seen Godfather, Part II. Meanwhile, it was only a few months ago that I finally caught up with The Silence of the Lambs, and I’m ashamed to admit I’ve yet to watch Apocalypse Now, A Clockwork Orange, Schindler’s List, Vertigo, and Lawrence of Arabia, among many other legendary films.

I try not to beat myself up over this, because, for whatever reason, there’s just so much more effort involved when you know you’re sitting down to watch a classic. Sometimes it’s just simpler to watch something of-the-moment, even mediocre drivel. Is We’re The Millers better than The Big Sleep? Most assuredly no, and yet I still spent two hours of my weekend watching Sudeikis and Aniston in lieu of Bogart and Bacall. It’s just the way things are.

I bring all this up as a preamble to my reaction to Before Midnight, which is the third in writer/director Richard Linklater’s series of talky films focused on soul mates Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy). Up until a few weeks ago, I’d never seen Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, the first two films in the trilogy. I was aware they existed and knew of the good buzz around them, and yet, I never went out of my way to seek them out. After all, how vital could two movies about star-crossed lovers bullshitting with each other during strolls through European locales possibly be?

After reading the raves for Midnight, I decided it was time to prioritize watching the first two films so that I could sit down for the third. Now, after having digested all three films, I’m fully confident that this trilogy belongs on the embarrassment list of any movie fan that has yet to see them. What Linklater and his actors (both of whom co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplays for the latter two entries) have accomplished with these films is outright mindboggling. Each one is great on its own, but as a whole, the trilogy places among the greatest cinematic triumphs I've ever seen.

Jesse and Celine are a long way from the idealized encounters they
shared in Before Sunrise (left) and Before Sunset (right).

For good reason, much of the emphasis on these films will be put on the romantic element and that makes sense. This is dubbed as one of the best romances in cinema history and with good reason – through three films Linklater has detailed the ongoing process that is love. Without giving too much away, it’s fair to say that Sunrise offers a dreamy evening between would-be lovers in Vienna, Sunset rekindles the passion after nine years apart, and Midnight catches up with the duo nine years later , during a critical juncture of what has become a long-term relationship.

There’s a universality to the whole journey – the idealism of a fresh connection, the realization that it wasn’t a fluke, that the love really was palpable and unique, and then, finally, the realism that sets in once you’re waist deep in a relationships, trying to keep love alive while maintaining your personal identity, making compromises and getting on one another’s nerves.

But these films detail not only the arc of a relationship, but the growth in these two people, and there’s something entirely relatable about the way the creative team so expertly captures the contradictions of the life stages in these three snapshots of life.

In his widely accepted Stages of Psychosocial Development, psychologist Erik Erikson* describes the psychosocial crisis for young adults (18 to 40) as love vs. intimacy, and the first two films fall in line with his teachings. There is a giddiness to the first film that echoes what it’s like being in your late teens and early 20s, a time when you’re fearless and exuberant but somehow simultaneously filled with all sorts of doubt. And the second highlights the mounting confidence that comes along midway through young adulthood that consistently clashes with a sort of restless desperation for things to finally come together.

*I’m not trying to be overly clinical here, but it’s very hard not to mention Erikson, especially considering Boyhood, Linklater’s latest film. Shot over the course of 12 years with the same four actors (Hawke included), the film is a literal coming of age story that chronicles the development of a boy from age 6 to 18. Clearly Linklater has a great interest in development and the passage of time, and it’s hard to imagine he hasn’t considered Erikson’s theory himself given that and how the theory perfectly dovetails with what he’s done in this series. If I ever were to get a chance to speak with the guy, you can bet I’d be sure to ask him about it.

Unlike the previous two entries in the series, Before Midnight features several other significant characters.

In Midnight, Jesse and Celine are no longer spring chickens. Erickson would place them firmly in adulthood (40 to 65), a time in which people begin wrestling with the psychosocial crisis of generativity vs. stagnation. It’s a time for people to focus on making a lasting mark in the world, and so, rightly, we find Jesse and Celine dealing with fears related to child rearing and career choices.

Overall, I think I like Sunset the best, mostly because it’s filmed in real-time, which lends immediacy to Jesse and Celine’s race to determine if this connection they’ve long idealized is a love worth changing their lives over. But all three films are absolutely fantastic in the way they capture the contradictions of life and love.

To focus specifically solely on the newest film, I greatly enjoy the ways in which it differentiates itself from its predecessors. Through the end of the second film, we had seen every moment shared between these two people, but now there’s nine years of added history – tender moments and strained concessions we haven’t witnessed – and that adds an extra weight to the proceedings.

Yes, Midnight ultimately focuses on a long and winding conversation in yet another European destination, but Linklater also opens up the narrative in the early going, including a revealing interaction between Jesse and his son from a previous relationship, as well as an extended dinner party sequence during which Jesse and Celine banter with several other couples. These two are no longer the sole voices on display, which is a clever way of indicating the mounting external factors these two are coping with now that fantasy has been replaced by reality. Things get darker in this third outing as the duo begins to feel boxed in by circumstance, and the narrative goes in some deeper and more complicated directions as a result.

Before closing, I have to mention that one of the very best things about these films is how wonderfully each one ends. All of them go out on satisfyingly poignant notes while somehow still leaving things provocatively unresolved. I’m not sure if Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy have the desire to keep returning to Jesse and Celine every nine years, but further entries would be more than welcome if they remain anywhere near as thought-provoking and engrossing as the first three have been. A

McQueen Delivers With the Harrowing "12 Years A Slave"

12 Years A Slave has a number of squirm-inducing long takes.

Just a year after Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (reviewed here), director Steve McQueen has brought another slavery tale to mainstream America, but his 12 Years A Slave proves a far more unsettling experience.

Whereas Django Unchained had all sorts of accouterments that made its brutality palpable for viewers – clever dialogue, irreverent humor and, importantly, the revenge element – 12 Years A Slave is an unflinching horror story. It is a serious movie about a serious topic, and in depicting slave conditions of the mid 1800s, it offers no moments of levity to break up the ugliness.

Based on the autobiographical account of Solomon Northup, 12 Years A Slave tells the story of how a free, educated black man was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Northup languished on several southern plantations for 12 years before finally coming across a Canadian carpenter willing to send word to his family and friends up north. After being freed, he became a major voice for the abolitionist cause and joined the Underground Railroad before ultimately disappearing a decade later under mysterious circumstances midway through the Civil War.

Knowing all of that doesn’t spoil the movie since it basically gives away the resolution in the title. The film is much more concerned with communicating the slavery experience – the savagery of a broken and immoral system that shockingly and embarrassingly took root in our country. McQueen doesn’t shy away from the inherent inhumanity of the story, and he purposefully holds certain shots for unbearably long amounts of time.

Two whippings are depicted in one-shot long takes and a scene in which Solomon is left hanging by a noose, struggling on tiptoes to stay alive is made all-the-more uncomfortable by contrasting his squirming for survival against the everyday farm work happening around him. Meanwhile, another scene in which slaves are displayed naked for purposes of sale is particularly unnerving given just how blasé the customers seem as they roam around an open house perusing potential product.

The cast is uniformly excellent, as one might expect given the three acting nominations the film landed from the Academy. Chiwetel Ejiofor is a gifted actor who probably hasn’t gotten the opportunities he deserves because he’s something like the eighth or ninth middle-aged black guy vying for roles in Hollywood, but he owns the screen here, using his wonderfully expressive face to communicate an array of emotions from confusion to desperation to relief.

Prepare for some powerhouse acting.

Meanwhile, McQueen regular Michael Fassbender gives a terrifying portrayal as Edwin Epps, an unhinged slave owner who uses select bible passages to justify his unbridled mistreatment of slaves. Both Ejiofor and Fassbender are worthy of any recognition that comes their way and the two of them share a quiet and intense sequence by lamp light that is one my favorite individual scenes from a 2013 film.

Despite their greatness, most of the acting accolades for the film have been funneled toward Lupita Nyong’o. She plays Patsey, a slave with an unparalleled ability to pick cotton who becomes the unfortunate focus of Epps’ affections, leading to a great deal of abuse from his jealous wife (Sarah Paulson as an evil Lady MacBeth type). I wouldn’t normally have expected Nyong’o to get such awards traction, but it’s a relatively weak field and she gives a solid performance, so I have no qualms about her taking home as many trophies as possible.

The rest of the cast is populated by a number of well-known actors, which can, at times, become a bit of a distraction. Paul Dano and Benedict Cumberbatch are given enough to do that they blend in seamlessly, but Alfre Woodard and Paul Giamatti call undue attention to themselves despite delivering fine performances.

Worst of all is the casting of Brad Pitt as the Canadian who orchestrated Solomon’s freedom. Pitt’s a producer on the film and he deserves a lot of credit for its existence, but he’s too big a star to show up in a spot like this. The role is a bit problematic anyway since the character is sort of a deus ex machina, but considering Pitt’s producer status, his presence adds a seemingly self-aggrandizing element. There’s nothing wrong with his performance, but it does pull the viewer out of the narrative once Brad Pitt shows up to punch slavery in the mouth.

That’s a minor blight, but the film does have some other flaws. For instance, the passage of time is poorly delineated and the key relationship between Patsey and Solomon is underdeveloped. However, none of that takes away from the achievement that is 12 Years A Slave. This is a great piece of film-making filled with a number of harrowing sequences and exceptional work in front of and behind the camera. It's not the best film of 2013, but it's pretty damn close to the top of the list. A

Polley Gets Personal With the Delightful "Stories We Tell"

Sarah Polley delves into her family history for her third film.

After the excellent one-two punch of Away From Her and Take This Waltz (which I reviewed last year), actress-turned-director Sarah Polley has ventured into the realm of nonfiction with her third feature. It's hard to talk about what makes the award-winning Stories We Tell such a treat without ruining some of the documentary's surprising revelations, but it is fair to say it covers the same thematic terrain of her fiction work – marriage, infidelity and the pursuit of personal fulfillment.

Using a combination of talking heads, family videos and cannily cast dramatic recreations, the film focuses on Polley’s enigmatic mother Diane, a woman with plenty of secrets who died when Polley was just 11 years old. Every player in the story – Polley's siblings and half-siblings, her father, her mother's various friends –gets a chance to offer their versions of the woman and her actions.

It’s easy to wonder why one would want to sit down and watch a documentary about a filmmaker’s mother, but the Polley brood is so intriguingly non-nuclear and each member so distinct that it’s hard not to get drawn into their orbit. Polley’s father Michael emerges as the heart of the film. When she begins to really pry into his past, he jokes, “What a vicious director you are” in a way that coveys he is both pained to dig up these emotions and impressed by the command of his daughter.

The film also makes some universal points that take it beyond the self-regarding piece it could have been. Initially it’s not clear which home videos are real and which are fabrications, but that only strengthens Polley’s argument about what she calls the “vagaries of truth.” There’s an often-unintended pliability to the way people process their pasts, and Polley captures that perfectly here.

“I’m interested in the way we tell stories about our lives, about the fact that the truth about the past is often ephemeral and difficult to pin down,” Polley says early in the film. By going the Roshomon route, Polley makes some keen points about skewed perceptions and unreliable memories, and she ultimately offers a layered presentation of Diane by stringing together the sometimes dissonant viewpoints of those left behind. A

Blomkamp Comes Back Down to Earth With "Elysium"

Elysium finds Matt Damon in badass mode. 

District 9 was a real shot of adrenaline when it hit theaters back in 2009. In an era in which so many blockbuster types are sequels, remakes or so derivative that they might as well be, here was a complicated, raw and original piece of science fiction.

Like many films of the genre, it was a full-on political allegory, and it attacked societal tendencies of xenophobia and social segregation in a way that was intellectually stimulating, pulse-poundingly thrilling and emotionally affecting. The film used a cinema verite mockumentary style to deliver its atypically personal and rough-edged story, but it still managed to deliver impressively large-scale special effects.

In short, it was one of the best films of that year, and really, one of the greatest science fiction films I’ve come across.

Because of this, I was anxiously anticipating Elysium, the sophomore outing from writer/director Neill Blomkamp, who once again teams with actor Sharlto Copley for an original science fiction film. With Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, and an increased budget in tow, expectations were undoubtedly high.

So, it’s with a great deal of disappointment that I write that Elysium is about as ho-hum as it gets. It’s visually stimulating and Copley makes some interesting choices with his batty bad guy, but the action’s not all that memorable and the narrative is a passably clichéd effort.

With this, District 9 and 2015's Chappie, Copley and Blomkamp
are clearly keen collaborators.

The film is another Occupy Movement parable. Earth’s wealthiest inhabitants have moved to Elysium, a utopian space station in which all sicknesses can be cured by med-bays that seem right out of Prometheus. The rest of society remains on Earth, which has become an overpopulated slum policed by oppressive robot forces.

Damon stars as Max Decker, an ex-con who works on an assembly line creating police robots just like Douglas Quaid did in Total Recall. His long-term dream of visiting Elysium becomes a vital necessity when he is exposed to lethal radiation on the job, and his effort to get to Elysium and into a med-bay leads him to join forces with some anarchic smugglers. They fit him with a powered exoskeleton and promise him a ride to Elysium if he can boost a sort of access card to the space station from the brain of one of its citizens working on Earth.

In doing this, Max stumbles into possession of a program that can override Elysium’s defenses, drawing the attention of Elysium’s power hungry secretary of defense (Foster) and her homicidal goon (Copley). Thrown into the mix is Max’s childhood friend (Alice Braga) whose daughter has terminal leukemia.

Throughout all of this, the plot relies on a mounting number of coincidences. The worst of all is Max’s insistence that the smugglers go after the guy whose brain just so happens to hold the key to overthrowing Elysium simply because he’s mad at him for owning the plant where he was exposed to radiation.

Worse than that, the story doesn't give viewers anybody worth caring about. Damon does what he can, but Max’s character arc is a telegraphed string of clichés with an endpoint that isn't really earned.

Blomkamp’s take on the divide between the haves and have nots is not nearly as moving or gripping as his exploration of apartheid in District 9. If that’s an unfair standard, I’ll go a step or two lower and confirm it’s not even as good as Oblivion, 2013’s other derivative “original” science fiction entry (reviewed here).

Still, it is superior to the similarly themed In Time (which I reviewed last year), and the space station is neatly realized.  Ultimately, it functions as an OK palate cleanser as we await the next big thing from a filmmaker with clear talent to burn. C+

"Saving Mr. Banks" Gets The Disney Treatment, For Good and Bad

Banks shows a P.L. Travers who warms to the Disney way.

Saving Mr. Banks is about the making of Mary Poppins, and taken on its own terms, it’s an enjoyable crowd-pleaser with a multitude of fine performances that, if nothing else, made me want to revisit the classic Disney film.

However, at the same time, it’s also a candy-coated fabrication, and it really rubbed me the wrong way how it turns P.L. Travers’ (Emma Thompson) justified concerns over Hollywood ransacking and her understandable desires to maintain artistic integrity into nothing more than daddy issues that the sweet-natured Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) needed to massage and overcome.

I have no reason to doubt Travers was a difficult, nitpicky woman, but the movie makes her story into a “Taming of the Shrew” tale that seems largely biased and unfair. The driving thrust of the movie concerns whether or not Disney and the brain trust behind the film adaptation can convince Travers to sign over the rights of the film, but in reality she already had signed the rights over out of financial necessity. A trip to California did occur, and, I can imagine Disney tried to allure her into seeing his way so that he might get the rights to her other books. However, scenes depicting her succumbing to the charms of Disney Land, connecting with Disney over shared childhood troubles and enjoying the film at the premier are totally made up.

Generally, I don’t have a problem with films bending the facts or making major changes if necessary (American Hustle recently did this, and, as my review indicates, I unblinkingly loved the film). I'm usually a firm believer in not letting the truth get in the way of good drama, and that’s especially true if embellishments give actors good beats to play, as the trip to London affords Hanks. However, this film clearly implies that it is a good thing to allow a giant corporation to pillage one’s art, and that’s an unsettling takeaway for me.

The film spends a lot of time on Travers' tough childhood.

To be fair, the throughline about fathers and how we want to remember them is a poignant one, and it certainly hits on a recognizable and interesting nerve. But the way it's delivered diminishes Travers as a character. In the film, Disney assuages Travers not by compromising on her understandable concerns about fake sentimentality, animation or the casting of Dick Van Dyke, but by promising to save Mr. Banks. Her qualms are only an extension of her icy exterior, and the good heart thawing by Disney has made them moot.

All of this makes for a meta viewing experience. The film Disney produces is a loose adaptation of Travers’ book, one that includes all the basic elements but also adds various spoonfuls of sugar to make it all play better. The end result may be a bit artificial, but it does make the father figure look good.

The exact same comments could be made about Saving Mr. Banks itself. Most of the basic elements are here, with certain things artificially livened up and/or sanded down to make it all go down easier, but, most importantly, it makes Walt Disney look good.

Considering all of this, one could easily make the case that the film was a giant work of propaganda with the following goals:

1) Make sure Walt Disney comes across well. 

2) Convey that the corporation know best when it comes to artistic direction (That's especially interesting on the heels of the whole disaster that went down with the making of Brave, which I reviewed last year). 

3)  Make people feel nostalgia over Mary Poppins, particularly in light of the fact that we just released a 50^th Anniversary Edition Blue Ray. In stores everywhere!

Hanks is great as Disney, but the film does a lot of myth making.

It’s really personal opinion on whether or not you take issue with any of that. I find some of it problematic, but, honestly, I’m more annoyed that the sugarcoating results in a missed opportunity. Midway through the film, Disney indicates he understands Travers' protectiveness because he had a similar experience with Mickey Mouse, and that scene hints at what this film could’ve been.

The real Disney got to maintain his artistic license, while Travers did not. Instead, Disney steamrolled her vision, basically because he thought he knew best. History has shown his inclinations were smart ones, and I think a more interesting movie would've explored this dichotomy more fully (the film’s excellent poster pointed to it).

There are shades of gray to the making of Mary Poppins and fascinating complexity to the two pivotal people involved, but Saving Mr. Banks is more interested in showcasing a sugary confection. That’s not a big surprise, and in fact, it echoes what happened with the original film, calling to mind a line included in both: “Can't put my finger on what lies in store, but I feel what's to happen all happened before.” B

"The Lone Ranger" Plays Better Than Expected

The Lone Ranger is a gorgeously shot film and Johnny Depp's
shtick doesn't grate like one might think it would by this point. 

The Lone Ranger was ravaged by critics last summer, but it’s really not all that terrible. It’s pretty cliché and about a half-hour too long, but it has an enjoyably off-kilter personality and is book-ended by two dynamite train sequences.

Like the Will Smith vehicle Wild Wild West, the film is a tonally confused blockbuster update of an irrelevant Western brand that turned into a box-office laughingstock. But unlike that film, it doesn't deserve such scathing critical derision.

Actually, The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is really a better comparison point. Not only is The Lone Ranger from the same studio (Disney), director (Gore Verbinski) and star (Johnny Depp), but it also follows the same narrative template.

As in those films, the focus here is on an upright hero in the classic mold (Armie Hammer subbing in for Orlando Bloom) joining forces with a kooky outsider type (Depp as a loopy Indian instead of a drunken pirate) to take down some bad guys. Even more specifically, it’s another mismatched buddy actioner in which a straight man driven by duty and love is corrupted for the better by a seemingly clueless weirdo who is actually a cunning, revenge-seeking superman.

Although clearly modeled after it, The Lone Ranger doesn't come close to capturing the magic or cohesiveness of the first Pirates film, but it does have the screwy charm, snappy direction and inventive action set-pieces that made the second one such a guilty pleasure.

With such concentration on trains, I suspect Big Thunder
Mountain Railroad at Disney amusement parks would've
been altered if the film had been a hit. Alas, it won't be.

Verbinski has a real knack for action and clear love for the Western genre, and that’s abundantly evident in the way he stages the bonkers train sequences and frames the gorgeous landscape. However, he has developed a tendency to over-stuff his movies to a bloated extent, and 149 minutes is just too long for a film like this. The movie would play a lot better without the unnecessary and intrusive framing device, and nothing would've been lost by cutting Helena Bonham Carter’s legless madame from the film.

The tone is questionable for a family film with the Disney label. At times the thing is a cute slapsticky riff, and at other times it digresses into extreme levels of violence. This, parents should be warned, is a film containing a massive body count, including the slaughtering of nearly an entire tribe of Indians, as well as an odd and unnecessary digression into cannibalism.

Overall, The Lone Ranger isn't a good movie, but it is an entertaining one. Depp, whose iconic role as Jack Sparrow has increasingly grown tired, actually does some interesting things here and, again, the train scenes are really quite thrilling. C+

Tom Hanks Shines in Searing "Captain Phillips"

Once the accent settles in, Tom Hanks kills it in Captain Phillips.

Captain Phillips is a gripping, well-crafted film about a real-life Somali pirate hijacking that turned into an ill-conceived hostage situation. As he did with United 93, director Paul Greengrass presents the story almost like a documentary, and despite the facts being public knowledge, he infuses the whole thing with an almost unbearable amount of tension.

The film opens with two scenes designed to set up the viewpoints and concerns of our two leads –Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks), the captain of a transport vessel to Kenya, and Muse (Barkhad Abdi), the fearless and desperate leader of a four-band pirate crew that will eventually hijack Phillips’ ship. The latter scene does a nice job of subtly showing why Somalis would turn to piracy, but the former is a tin-eared exercise – the one blight on what is a very tight and attuned script from screenwriter Billy Ray.

The film mostly sticks to the actual story, which lends the whole thing a no-bullshit credibility but results in a lack of the sizzle and depth that might have been included in a more fictionalized account. We learn very little about any of our characters, and while they all feel like real people, we’re mostly denied of the movie moments that would really sell their dimensionality. However, the measured, fly-on-the-wall approach creates a participatory feel, so it's really a strength and a weakness all at once.

At 134 minutes, the film is pretty long, and it does start to drag once the pirates take Phillips in their desperate attempt to salvage their botched takeover of the Maersk Alabama. That said, I think the extended sequence inside the claustrophobic lifeboat is important to get viewers into the cornered mindset of the helpless inhabitants, as Phillips becomes more and more convinced he will not make it out alive, and the pirates become increasingly terrified and delusional about how the situation will play out.

The extended time is also essential in building the sense of dread, and it really sets up the denouement of the film in which Hanks gets to drop the façade of resolute cool headedness and let all the bottled up pressure and fear come flowing out. It’s a strong film overall with great technical work across the board and ace support from newcomer Abdi, but I suspect Captain Phillips will be remembered most for these final emotional moments with Hanks. The man’s an all-time great, but his breathtaking vulnerability in the infirmary scene (a breakdown on which can be read here) may be the strongest moment in his illustrious career. B+