One Oscar nominee will be unable to attend this year’s Academy Awards ceremony – banned, if you will. But you can catch Asghar Farhadi’s Best Foreign Language candidate this weekend at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Also available – new Robert DeNiro, new Pedro Almodovar, and the movie that could kill you in seven days.
Rings
Releasing a film without a pre-screening for critics is usually a bad sign. A mid-February studio release is never good.
You know what else isn’t good? Rings.
If you’re wondering whether Samara’s story disappeared with the last VCR, puzzle no longer. Sadly, it did not. Indie hipsters at a garage sale take home some vintage equipment, find an old VHS tape inside and watch it.
At this film’s heart is still that Scooby-doo mystery to solve that is the foundation of nearly every ghost story – and Samara’s tale is essentially that. In this episode – which forgets 2005’s The Ring 2 ever existed – two college freshmen do the sleuthing.
The leads are, as far as I can tell, made entirely of wood or wheat toast. Matilda Lutz is Julia the bland, devoted girlfriend and courageous ghost hunter. Her boyfriend Holt (Alex Roe – yawn) participated in a wild psychological experiment led by his professor Gabriel (Johnny Galecki) – garage sale junkie. That experiment leaves Holt with 7 days to live…and his time is almost up.
The film’s running time isn’t, though. Oh, no. Holt’s fate is revealed and we still have at least 3/4 of the movie to suffer through.
Why do I get my hopes up?
Grade: D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouwST4IEvJo
The Salesman
It should surprise no one familiar with Asghar Farhadi that the filmmaker is a former playwright. In films such as About Ely, The Past and the Oscar-winning A Separation, Farhadi, as both writer and director, has shown sharp instincts for building quiet tension through insightful, deliberately paced dialog.
His latest, The Salesman, is no exception, as Farhadi returns to his stage roots in crafting a meaningful parallel between a classic American play and an Iranian couple whose marriage is frayed by a traumatic incident.
While The Salesman may lean on contrivance a whisper more than usual, Farhadi again uses intimate conflicts to explores more universal themes of gender and class, and he again delivers a screenplay with minimal filler. Buoyed by resonant performances from the two leads, each line of dialog is carefully placed for maximum impact, while Farhadi weaves Arthur Miller’s work into the narrative for a poignant undercurrent of generational clash in a changing world.
Though the classic “attention must be paid” speech occurs relatively early in Death of a Salesman, Farhadi confidently builds his film toward a third act reflecting similar themes. All of us, no matter what may have occurred in the past, deserve basic human dignity.
Sadly ironic, then, that if The Salesman earns Farhadi his second Academy Award, he won’t be there to accept it. The Iranian filmmaker is now banned from America due to recent immigration directives, and his work must stand as a testament to the increasingly shaky ground of our own foundations.
Grade: A-
The Space Between Us
Space – the weepy YA film’s final frontier. Hopefully.
Asa Butterfield (Hugo) is Gardner, the first child born on Mars – even if it was an accident. But he’s lonely and isolated and apparently we can build a community on Mars but we can’t get them contemporary movies.
Gardner’s lonely! He’s angsty! He’s smitten with Tulsa, the bored, hardened foster kid he met online (Britt Robertson – Tomorrowland).
Wouldn’t it be dreamy if they met? I’m sure each one of them could appreciate how deeply special the other one is, even if no one else notices it.
The Space Between Us is harmless enough. Butterfield and his big blue eyes make Gardner’s exploration of Earth sweet, and solid performances from a veteran supporting cast including Gary Oldman and Carla Gugina give what life they can to the plodding, predictable plot.
This is a love story without sparks, a potential tragedy without an emotional pull. The payoff feels not only predetermined but unearned.
Grade: C-
Julieta
Pedro Almodovar brings his two most marked filmmaking styles – the one submerged in the world of women (Volver, for instance), the later of a more Hitchockian note (The Skin I Live In) – and pulls them together in his latest effort, Julieta.
The titular heroine, played at different ages by Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte, has a shameful secret – or two. A chance encounter with a childhood friend of her daughter’s convinces Julieta to change plans to leave Madrid, moving instead to the old building where she’d lived for years with her daughter.
We then switch to the story of the younger Julieta (Ugarte), and Almodovar gets all Strangers on a Train with us.
Almodovar built the screenplay on three inter-connected shorts by Canadian writer Alice Munro, layering her words with an urgent score, suggesting dangerous thrills, and dialog-heavy close ups that feel more like daytime drama.
Munro’s writing tends to lull you with quite unveilings. Julieta may be Almodovar’s attempt to spice that up by way of homage, score and framing, but it feels like a trick. His direction leads us to believe we’re watching some thriller wrought with dangerous secrets. We are not. This chicanery undercuts the power of Munro’s meditation on guilt while it all but guarantees the dissatisfaction of a misled audience.
Grade: C
Comedian
One of the curious aspects of The Comedian is that, even though it’s more of a character study than an outright comedy, that character is a legendary comic who’s not really that funny.
Robert DeNiro stars as Jackie Burke, an insult comedian who hit it big back in the day with a smash TV sitcom. An encounter with an aggressive heckler goes viral, and suddenly Jackie is hot again…while serving 30 days for assault.
He meets Harmony (Leslie Mann) while fulfilling community service hours, and director Taylor Hackford dutifully kicks off a series of situations in search of greater cohesion.
An old school comic facing the truth that “being funny isn’t enough anymore” could have been fertile ground for a more layered, meaningful character. The Comedian doesn’t seem interested. Veteran standup comics are among the film’s writers, comedy consultants, and cameo stars, but the script never gives Hackford the ammo to dig any more than surface deep.
What Hackford does have is a talented cast (including Danny DeVito, Harvey Keitel, Patti LuPone and Cloris Leachman), and he keeps all the actors engaged enough to deliver terrific performances, regardless of screen time. That’s about the best reason to see The Comedian, a film that seems content to put off getting its act together in favor of just wandering around backstage.
Grade: C
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLQXUmzXuEo
Also opening in Columbus:
- Arbor Demon (NR)
- Disturbing the Peace (NR)
- Fire at Sea (NR)
- Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back (PG-13)
- Kung-Fu Yoga (NR)
- Sadako V Kayako (NR)
- Tanna (NR)
- Things to Come (R)
- Two Lovers and a Bear (R)
Reviews with help from George Wolf.
Read more from Hope at MADDWOLF and listen to her weekly horror movie podcast, FRIGHT CLUB.
Looking for more film events in Columbus? CLICK HERE to visit our Events Calendar.