“What I lack in experience I make up for in clichés”

Friends with Benefits: directed by Will Gluck; written by Keith Merryman, David A. Newman and Will Gluck
  
After seeing Friends with Benefits I came across some interviews that director/writer Will Gluck gave in relation to the film and my attention was immediately caught when I saw him compare it to a Tracy/Hepburn scenario. More arresting, though, was his concept of the characters’ mindfulness. A significant scene in the film sees the two, until then, sex starved protagonists Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) watching a romantic couple on screen played to anachronistic perfection by Jason Segel and the lovely Rashida Jones. Because these characters are so wise they’re able to point out the silliness of the romantic genre and the ludicrousness that has all those platitudes culminate in a happy ever after ending. The scene is delivered with a level of snark I accept, because even if I do feel badly for the genre romantic comedies tend to be embellished as of late with little to redeem them. In theory, it seems Gluck flirts with the idea of creating a response to decade and more of tired clichés – but, not quite...

A week after the fact, the occasional insularity of the film’s world gives me pause. Dylan is a mere denizen in New York, so that would explain his apparent isolation, but it’s odd that Jamie (portrayed as the poster-girl for all things New York) would have not a single friend in the city other than a man she’s met mere weeks before. The conceit of the film rests on the concept that the two, islands in the proverbial stream, are both lonely and horny and deciding that sex should be as friendly and casual as a game tennis decide to begin a game – a sports’ metaphor that’s awfully trite*. I think I’m getting lost in mixed metaphors. Naturally, the situation will go awry when one – or god forbid, both – of them realises that the situation isn’t as foolproof as it seems. Even tennis has its causalities.

More than a number of persons have credited the “success” of the film to the charisma of the two leads and Timberlake and Kunis definitely do have searing chemistry. For all his recent ubiquity, I like Justin Timberlake (although that’s more than possibly just residual appreciation from his music career) and though I’ve not seen Kunis in enough for her to move me I’m still interested in when she steps up the base line to serve (another sports’ metaphor, whoa). Still, fairly good performances hardly make fine cinema and though nothing about the film screams abysmal, the film around them doesn’t suggest priority. Patricia Clarkson shows up, as is her wont, to inject even more enthusiasm to the situation as Jamie’s kooky and somewhat loose mother. There’s a scene in the film which seems intended to mirror a similar one in Gluck’s last feature Easy A, and it doesn’t roll over the net unimpeded (ahem). It’s because Friends with Benefits spends a curiously short amount of time examining the purported issues of the characters. The film opens with respective hook-ups of Jamie and Dylan telling them that they’re emotionally undeveloped and damaged, and it’s not until well into the second half that they make up on any indication these emotional issues. Otherwise, Timberlake and Kunis prance around like any normal, good-looking young adult.

The clichéd romantic comedy within a romantic comedy which Segel and Jones star in plays on a loop at occasional parts of the film and Gluck’s intent is as subtle as a hammer to the head. The insertion is too saccharine to be condescending; it borders more on being annoyingly expedient. This, he seems to say, is the clichéd way – we’re going to be more self-aware. But, imprudently Gluck seems to think that acknowledging that a mountain is huge is as good as moving it. So, he mires his film down with a slew of witty comments on the state of affairs in the genre while resorting to the same ones to keep the film afloat, which results in an experience where the occasional pleasures are subverted by a pervading sense of confusion. I think I’d have appreciated Friends with Benefits more if it didn’t try to land its serve with a backhanded (gah, that metaphor again). It delivers in a cutesy ways of the genre, but by destroying the naive geniality of the genre it leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. And, for all their clichés – the last thing you want is a romantic comedy which leaves you feeling uncomfortable. Gluck shows moments of perception, but they aren’t well imbued. Gluck takes the dive, but he doesn’t stick his landing.

(*I’m done with the sports’ metaphors, I promise. See how gauche that was, with the constant use of sports’ metaphors even as I said that they’re awkward? That’s sort of how Friends with Benefits comes off.)


C

Enter Patricia Clarkson...

Shhh, Patty is resting - and she should be, she's constantly turning up in movies and making them exponentially better....now she's turning to TV

I only recently said that Patty Clarkson should show up in everything and be awesome and now comes the news that Ron Swanson, the legendary character on Parks and Recreation (do not dispute that statement) is going to be the impetus for Patty's appearance on the show. Yes, Tammy I will be played this paragon of cinema. (via)If there's anyone who can instill fear in Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, it's Patty.
          
Now I can't wait for Parks and Recreation to be back.

Forgotten Characters 4.2

Ensemble films tend to turn up when you get to thinking about forgotten characters. With casts that are as expansive as most large ensembles there is some actor who ends up getting shafted – especially when their role isn’t as pivotal to the story’s major arcs. Thus, in a way, I can understand why this particular performance isn’t remembered more often but I still have massive love for

Patricia Clarkson in Vicky Cristina Barcelona

as Judy

Judy is something of an emissary in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It’s her house that Vicky and Cristina stay at whilst in Barcelona; it’s through her – tangentially – that they meet Juan Antonio and so on. Vicky Cristina Barcelona isn’t quite classic Woody so there’s a tendency for Judy’s appearances in the film to feel a bit perfunctory at times but that’s where Patricia Clarkson comes in. She’s more than adept at acting from the side-lines and infuses Judy with some interesting tics to make her more than just a springboard for the film’s bigger issues. One of her first lines in the film is her throwaway, “It’s so nice to have a little action around here” to the girls. It sounds a bit on-the-nose considering the hijinks they’ll get in to later but I like to think of it as proof of how much of an instigator Judy likes to be. She wants the girls to get into shenanigans so she can live vicariously through them, but as early as her first scenes you get the feeling that she’s jealous of their youth. When Vicky talks of her academic future and her fiancé, Judy glibly responds,

“All her conflicts will be resolved when he makes her pregnant.”

It’s not even said bitterly, that’s just what Judy thinks of married woman – no identity.

It’s a lead up, of course, to her big scene in the beginning of the film’s third act, after Vicky witnesses her kiss with her husband’s friend Jay.

“I haven’t been in love with Mark for years.”

It’s not the most seminal of monologues, she goes through the usual concepts of an unhappy marriage, a fear of getting out of it, the moment passing but it’s not so much the lines as Patty’s expressions through out.

 

 

 

 

 And that line, “I can’t leave him now, and I know I never will.”

Our final shot of Judy occurs after her misguided attempts to get Vicky to hook up with Juan Antonio. With her plans awry she settles, desolately, back into her routine – no excitement to vicariously enjoy. If that isn’t the face of a woman with a backstory, I don’t know what is.

 

Perhaps it’s not Woody’s Judy which is memorable…it’s Patricia’s interpretation of it.
      
Do you have any left over love for Patty in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, or is she lost in the shuffle?

Encore Awards: Body of Work

Though she didn’t end up with any love from the top awards’ bodies last year was all about Marion Cotillard for me. Her general brilliance turned Public Enemies into something much better than it could have been, and her brilliantly performed Luisa Contini was a beacon in the already good cast of Nine (she made my supporting actress shortlist for both performances). Anyone can star in a slew of performances in a given year, but it’s something better when an actor can deliver two (or more) performances in a year that have something good to see in them and assume different sensibilities*.

THE NOMINEES

Annette Bening (in The Kids Are All Right; Mother & Child)

It might be easy to mistake them for extensions of the same character, but whereas Nic quietness is indicative of the uncertainty she wishes to hide, Karen’s quietness is more of a conscious decision to observe those around her. Both performances stand somewhere at the top half of her career, making her one of those indelible proofs of actresses getting better as they age.

               

Helena Bonham Carter (in Alice in Wonderland; Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows; The King’s Speech)

In a way, it annoys me that she’s turned into a sort of ultimate supporting actor implying that her natural personality is best taken in small doses and even though she supports in a period piece in The King’s Speech it’s neither reminiscent of her early Merchant Ivory work nor suggestive of her recent kooky characters. Each character she played this way, in their own way, is a woman before her time but she doesn’t make that define them. There is a palpable sense that she’s being served up too little on each occasion, but it’s the sort of acting from the sidelines that does not define the picture but still augments it significantly.

             

Patricia Clarkson (in Cairo Time; Easy A; Shutter Island)

Her supporting turn in Shutter Island is a bit of a blink and you’ll miss it one – and yet, along with Williams and DiCaprio, she leaves the biggest impact on you. You rarely ever seeing Patty being loud and obnoxious, always opting for a quiet sincerity which is her ace-in-hole when it comes to Cairo Time which she makes so much more important than you expect her to be. And then opposite Tucci she offers up one of the best screen-mothers of the year in Easy A. Truly, a great body of work.

                

Aaron Johnson (in The Greatest; Kick-Ass; Nowhere Boy)

It’s been a while since I had this much interest in watching a young male star’s star rise. It’s been a stratospheric year for Johnson and more than turning out three performances this year, it’s impressive how the running thread between them is so thin. There’s little to find that’s palpably similar between his Lennon, his  John and his Dave. True, acting doesn’t necessarily mean mastering accents, but I’ll give him credit for pulling off the American one so well, nonetheless.

Kerry Washington (in For Colored Girls; Night Catches Us; Mother & Child)

I don’t know – the fact that each film has landed with almost no sound makes me rethink the sentiment – but, perhaps, Kerry is on her way to stardom, opting for the slower path. She pulls out three performances that rests on internalising grief and pain and performs each brilliant. Sure, she thrives best in Mother & Child, but even in the huge cast of For Colored Girls with the storyline that seems least important she carves something special. (And story issues aside she and Mackie are beautiful to watch in Night Catches Us.)

               

FINALISTS: Michelle Williams for offering up a brilliant supporting turn in Shutter Island and a haunting lead performance in Blue Valentine; Andrew Garfield for offering up two good (if similar) turns in The Social Network and Never Let Me Go and James Franco for being a beacon in two lead roles in Howl and 127 Hours.

                 

Which actor ruled 2010 with their ability to jump from performance to performance?

* Just in case you're wondering, Johnny Depp would win the alternative award here. He's easily the worst thing in The Tourist and Alice in Wonderland (yep, even worse than the Wasikowska's bland work in the latter.) He sinks Angelina's attempts to be at least interesting in the former, and other than a glimmer of goodness opposite HBC he's terribly vile in the latter. I hope it's not the beginning of a trend for him...

Easy A

About a quarter way into Easy A it occurred to me that it’s been quite some time since I’ve seen a movie like this that was successfully created. I don’t think of myself as a child of the 90s, but I grew up in a house with two sisters who were; and, this sort of hopefully (or should that be hopelessly) zeitgeist teen comedy that wears its heart shamelessly on its sleeves while still trying to adhere to the typical sensibilities of its usual sex-deprived audience is such a thing of the past that I was almost expecting an angry cheerleader to turn up with her ponytail and slam her locker door as she disparagingly tells us that this entire movie is “super nineties”.

 True to the 90s form Easy A is thin on plot. Olive Penderghast is any random teenage girl complete with that nagging feeling of invisibility. Will Gluck (writer and director) doesn’t even try to make her into the ugly duckling (a la Rachel Leigh Cook), although this is not quite the story of invisible girl meets popular boy – then comes love. But, you immediately get that feeling of disbelief that Emma Stone in all her gorgeous affability is struggling to get noticed at her school. Nonetheless, as the plot goes, an unfortunate and rash embellishment (okay, fine – a stupid lie) falls on the wrong ears and Olive moves from unknown to renowned (and did I mention, slutty) in a matter of seconds – the gossip chain at Ojai School is phenomenal. What ensues is a generally standard tale of finding oneself and love (the high school version) completed with a plethora of zany supporting characters and a potential obscure throwback to a classic piece of literature (enter Nathaniel Hawthorne and his “Scarlet Letter”).

The thing is, what made the 90s so brilliant (says me) was its unrelenting awareness of how to play the almost tediously standard story against a backdrop of freaky random teenage occurrences and making it seem if not inspired at least fresh (marginally). You know the type: unpopular girl gains popular for better, then for worse, and then for better again, sort of. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Emma Stone in anything before and true she’s no Julia Stiles/Rachel Leigh Cook/[insert name] but she is altogether charming enough to make a ridiculous running gag involving Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocket Full of Sunshine” decidedly hilarious even when the “joke” has no punch line of any sort. Of course anyone who comes from Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci has to have a modicum of awesomeness; and of course, true to their usual form Patty and Stanley are adept at stealing scenes like no one’s business. I’m not sure it’s prudent for me to call it a fault of the film that Easy A is at its height when either of the two take the screen. It’s to Gluck’s credit (and, I’ll admit, my occasional consternation) that he doesn’t overload us with their brilliance. They’re only peripheral addition to the story, and Gluck knows that, just like Lisa Kudrow’s improbable, freaky and altogether enjoyable guidance counselee isn’t the story’s root either – even if she’s more than just satisfying milking it for all it’s worth.

It’s a slight pet peeve of mine when someone will review a movie that’s less than perfect, and say some variation of “it succeeds because it knows it’s not very good” – ambiguous much? I won’t deny that sometimes even I confuse profundity with goodness. Does Easy A have an overreaching message to give us? I think it’s a bit impractical to place too much credence on Olive and possibly Gluck’s obvious infatuation with John Hughes (though it’s probably a bit difficult not to). I will say for Gluck that he has a talent for handling the mass of characters without getting confused or overwrought. It covers much ground in 90 minutes but seems to fly by, and perhaps somewhere in that we should probably just appreciate diversity in Easy A as much as we should in the real world (or something like that). Maybe, in the end, the payoff seems a bit too slight to really have anything more than ephemeral profundity (and, maybe, not even that) – but I’ll forgive it because, well, I’m easy.

                

B/B-

The Spin-Off, Season One: Episode 4

Other than Cairo Time when was the last time Patricia Clarkson was front and centre in a film? She’s been constantly popping up in movies, with some significant parts here and there but rarely have I seen her anchor a film – and it’s not for a lack of talent. I remember watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona and being strangely interested in Patricia’s bored wife. Depending on you speak to Woody’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona is either horribly bland, placid and different or just horrible. I’d say everyone does a good job, it was some time before I became a complete believer in Penelope’s Marie Elena but I was immediately struck by Patty’s Judy. She seems to be explicitly exist as a character from some other Allen film (Husbands & Wives).

 

One thing Woody has always been able to do is convince you that his supporting characters are leading players in their own worlds and I could only imagine what the life of Judy must be. Patricia brings such a ridiculous self-absorption to the role that’s sometimes easy to miss. But, more importantly she plays Judy as a desperate housewife but not a pathetic. I’ll probably be a believer in Woody’s talent for life even if he doesn’t all get the ace in the hole. Only recently Burning Reels suggested that Woody turn to his former heroines (Dianne, Diane, Mia) to make a film about the older girls, but I think a prequel on Judy’s apparently tedious marriage could be just as interesting. I probably was one of the few that liked Whatever Works, and Patricia was smashing in it. I’d like to see her tackle Woody again.

         

What about you? Would you be interested in seeing Patty holding down a Woody film?

        

Previously:

Richard and Susan examine their marriage troubles from Babel

Meredith Logue and Tom Ripley continue their journey in The Talented Mr. Ripley

Marjorie Mellor before her daughter, Jenny, got her (An) Education

Patricia Clarkson is Luminous (and other musings on Cairo Time)

It’s strange; the effect a single actor can have on the outcome of an entire film is sometimes unsettling. The first word that comes to mind in relation to Cairo Time, a love story but not so much, is sanguine. Not irrepressibly cheerful but certainly not dour. I’m not even sure love story is the right way to categorise, though it’s the most logical. Juliette is in Cairo Time for the first time. Her husband works with the UN and her children have grown up – they don’t need her anymore. She runs a women’s magazine about social issues and hopes to take a vacation with her husband in Cairo, but he’s held up in Gaza and she must remain in Cairo alone. Here, she forges an odd bond with a former worker of her husband Tareq.

Trying to assess its individual strengths it’s a difficult to say why Cairo Time works. It’s not overly inventive with its plot and though the cinematography is beautiful it doesn’t attempt to be conspicuous. Perhaps, it’s the simple fact that Cairo Time has simple intentions that makes the end product something strangely satisfying. Of course, Patricia is the film’s mainstay. Perhaps more than a love-story, it’s a coming age (albeit at a very late age), and really there’s not stringent way to say what “coming” of age occurs. We’re not supposed to, though. Cairo Time is content to chronicle a few moments in the city with Juliette, and though there’s no ulterior motive there’s a whole lot that’s going under the surface. Juliette is not unhappy, but she's not happy either. There seems to be nothing amiss in her life or marriage, and perhaps that's the problem. She spends so much time seeing emotionless, but not listless. It's a thin line, Patty treads it beautifully.

It’s all very subtle with Cairo Time, just like with Patricia’s performance. The plot-points and the climax doesn’t occur with resounding choruses or grand sequences, it’s all very simple and as close to the mundane reality of life. Yet, the film itself is never mundane. It’s beautifully crafted, backed by a lovely score and anchored by Patty front and centre (a rarity). Here’s someone who needs more leading roles, because really she turns the simple goodness of Cairo Time into something that’s just beautiful, in its weird assuming way.

           

B (A- for Patty)

Supporting Actress Blog-a-thon: Patricia Clarkson

This post is part of StinkyLulu’s Supporting Actress Blog-a-thon. Head over and feast on the posts.

      

Woody Allen is one of the more prolific directors of his age. He churns out, more or less, one movie per year. When it comes to quality…that’s another story. Whatever Works was not quite the hit that Vicky Cristina Barcelona was last year, and I suppose coming off that Whatever Work would seem a bit like a flop. Still, every performance or film can't be the best and Whatever Works features a good performance from a fine actress.

                        

Patricia Clarkson as Marietta

The film has some issues, but it’s a pity that Patricia Clarkson’s performance was shrouded by the lukewarm response of the film. The supporting actress race seems all but wrapped up – a couple Weinstein girls, maybe, couple from Up In the Air, a not so Precious one and probably Julianne Moore. Whatever. They’re fine, but the argument can be made that Patricia [like so many of the women I covered] could warrant a spot in the top 5.

                                             

As I’ve said before, Patricia’s role in Whatever Work’s is akin to the Marie Elena and Nola Rice role from Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Match Point. It’s the supporting performance that lends an “it” factor to the movie and a talented thespian like Patricia can probably play such a role easily. Luckily, she decides not to phone it in and gives an incredibly funny, yet endearing performance as Marietta. She plays the mother to our quasi-Heroine Melody [Evan Rachel Wood] and like Marie Elena bursts into the film somewhere at the half point, with her country accent in toe. It’s a stark contrast to Clarkson’s more popular works, and at first glance it seems as if she’s playing it a bit too much. But in my naiveté [probably what it is] I like to think that Patricia Clarkson is a better actress than that.

You’d notice how her accent simmers along with her clothes and attitudes as the film progresses? It’s not just the fact that she’s in New York eradicating her accent. This woman has spent her entire life putting on a show; a perpetual life of dress-up. She’s comfortable, and it’s what she likes so – as clichéd as it sounds – she begins to find her true self in New York and becomes less pretentious and more, dare I say it, bohemian. Classic Woody. It’s a bit of a hypocrisy that no one is noticing this performance. It’s highly possible that I’m seeing this whole thing through rose-tinted spectacles, and it’s true it’s not as good as some other Woody roles and it probably is not THE best performance of the year, supporting or otherwise. But we’re constantly bemoaning the lack of good roles for older women and Patty Clarkson comes along and knocks one out of the park and what happens with it? Absolutely nothing. Oh well, whatever works.