Stroked Muscovy Duck Breast
Now Playing: The Chieftains--"The Dogs Among The Bushes"
Atonement (2007): As Bill the Cat might say, "thhhhpppppthhhh!" What a silly bastard of a movie. I'd simply describe it as a "load," but mitigating factors prevent me. I'd heard wildly conflicting reviews of this one from a far-flung variety of sources and figured it was essential that I try it out for myself. What emerges, despite being based on a recent Booker Prize-winning novel by Ian McEwan (I've never read his stuff, and maybe it is that silly in real life)* is basically an unconscious stiff-upper-lip parody of people acting very, very stupidly, with heavy-handed attempts to make it more "adult" and "modern." It's sad, really, as there's a good story in there, and most of the performances, though intially of the same parodistic water, start to grow on you. In 1935 England, sisters Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Briony (Saoirse Ronan, and how cool a name is that?) Tallis live an upper-class life on an (I suspect) improbably beautiful estate with Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) as their friend and gardener with a convoluted and similarly improbable past of his own. Though all three are friends to varying degrees, an almost random and explosive act of injustice tears them apart. It involves the word "cunt," and the way in which that particular aspect of the plot was handled reminded me of a godawful U-M Basement Arts production that I'd seen, in which college kids, given the chance to put on a play free of parental or school supervision, loaded down the show with cussing and sniggering references to sex. A prerogative of college kids, but not of Oscar bait. I saw what director Joe Wright was trying to do, but it didn't work. Robbie goes to prison, to be released four years later for the BEF so he can wait with everyone else at Dunkirk. The characters relate to each other in drastically changed circumstances during the war years (Briony now played by Romola Garai), until the scene shifts close to the present day, with an elderly Briony (Vanesa Redgrave) reflecting on the tragedy of her younger years and the pitfalls that ignorance of desire can represent. It all looks fine on paper, but... every attempt to gussy the story up with snazzy camera angles, shooting in reverse, relatively explicit sex scenes, and schoolboy-obvious visual and audo cues actually makes it more stodgy and "Ehngwish" (I don't know if there's an existing equivalent for "Oirish," the kind of thing you get in, say, The Quiet Man--which was, let us remember, good--but if not, I'm making one up). The musical phrasing is particularly annoying. When Robbie writes a passionate love note to Cecilia at the beginning of the movie, of course he's listening to La Boheme, and when Briony, now a nurse, sits up with a mortally wounded French soldier from Dunkirk who goes on about this girl he knew who used to play Debussy, of course Clair de Lune starts to play as she leaves him. What's unfortunate about this is that there's good in the movie, but none of it comes together. It was like Brokeback Mountain, only worse. If you want a good story about Dunkirk, grab the Foyle's War episode "The White Feather" (Rome's Tobias Menzies, who's in Atonement for about thirty seconds, is fantastic in it). It actually had me silently giggling in places, to the doubtlessly disapproving stares of my neighbors (who can bite me, by the way, especially the guy who left his cell phione on during the show). McAvoy and Knightley, though their accents are tewwibwy, tewwibwy pwoper in a nails-on-the-chalkboard way, get much better as the movie goes along (and as I think both are excellent actors anyway, I blame the movie), especially in an argument scene with nurse Briony. The best thing about the movie, though, is Ronan. Foreign movies seem to have had an unusual run of luck over the past few years with child actors (I think especially of Keisha Castle-Hughes in Whale Rider and Ivana Baquero in Pan's Labyrinth), and Ronan holds what she can of the movie together in a way that speaks well of her future career. And her name really is pretty cool. As for Joe Wright, I charitably hope his artistic fortunes improve, as 2005's Pride and Prejudice, though not a patch on the 1996 BBC classic, wasn't all that bad (Brenda Blethyn, who plays Robbie's mother in Atonement, brings a pathos to Mrs. Bennet that Alison Steadman never evinced in the TV version, and Jena Malone and Carey Mulligan just need their own damn movie). If this wins the Best Picture Oscar, it'll be grand folly of Braveheart-Forrest Gump-Driving Miss Daisy proportions.
Cloverfield (2008): Okay, that's more like it. Great; I had to go and fall in love with Lizzy Caplan again. I was thoroughly prepared to laugh my ass off throughout this movie at its ridiculousness, but found myself taken aback at how good it was. Even the occasional bit of cheesiness ends up with some pertinence to other themes. Producer J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves set up a Godzilla-like monster attacking Manhattan and show the efforts of a doughty band of survivors trying to make it out of the beleaguered borough before either the monster or defending government do for them. Mild spoilers ahead!! The movie's an odd hybrid; filmed much in the style of The Blair Witch Project (all on someone's home video), the first ten minutes or so actually comprise a very funny short about a going-away party at a painfully hip downtown crib thrown for Rob (Michael Stahl-David), who's just got some sweet new job in Japan but who has very mixed feelings about leaving his recent ex-girlfriend Beth (Odette Yustman). Rob's mildly sketchy brother Jason slacks off his camcorder duties--assigned by his severely gorgeous girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas)--and cons the bumbling Hud (T.J. Miller) to do the job, if the latter can find time to do so while incompetently flirting (mind you, is there really any other kind?) with the devastatingly beautiful and very cool Marlena (Lizzy Caplan--oh, Lizzy Caplan). Rob and Beth get into a fight, and he, Jason and Hud end up out on the landing, threatening to begin one of those vaguely "you're so money" post-nineties guy conversations for which Swingers has yet to pay (although Jason did, so that's something, anyway). Thankfully, right at the most excruciating moment (literally), all hell breaks loose. Fleeing with the rest of Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge, Rob discovers via cell that Beth is still in her apartment and badly hurt--Rob and gang to the rescue! The "princessy" stench Beth gave off earlier in the evening lends Cloverfield a faint fairytale vibe. I found very little wrong with this movie. The first ten minutes were painfully familiar; I could easily imagine the scenario playing out in Michigan (Madisonfest, Arbourfest, Mittenfest, take your pick). What happens afterward is genuinely affecting; the characters could have been such easily despicable hipster fucks (which still would have been great fun; it could have been Cry Funny Happy Meets Ghidrah--or Monster Zero, depending on which planet you're from), but I found them truly empathetic, although Hud could be a little too cartoonishly bumbling. I thought Marlena was the most memorable, but then I'm obviously prejudiced (besottedness aside, she did have some very funny and moving scenes). Caring for characters, of course, is a lot harder to do when your real "star" is the ingenious CGI horror ripping the city apart. I never thought I'd say this, but I think people are starting to get good at CGI. It helps that not much of the monster is ever shown; the only real long shots are usually through explosions, dust, and murk. While I understand that a number of theories have been floated regarding the monster's actual nature, I was reminded most, of all things, of those weird horse-like creatures Jen and Kira rode to get to the tower in The Dark Crystal. Sadly, for various reasons, I doubt we'll be seeing a series of increasingly ridiculous and pointless--yet funny--movies featuring constant attacks on New York with people pointing up at the sky en masse and screaming "It's Cloverfield!!!" with their mouths not exactly matching the words. While I seriously doubt this'll be up for Best Picture anytime soon (despite its overwhelming superiority to one of this year's choices), I expect its ending to prove as relatively controversial as the ones for No Country For Old Men and There Will be Blood. A very pleasant surprise, and a great way to get Atonement out of my system.
*Why the hell doesn't someone try and film Wise Children? Mind you, when it comes to Angela Carter adaptations, The Company of Wolves was rather uneven. And given the frequent fate of many literary transfers (with the glittering exceptions of No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood), maybe it's best that they don't.