Frankie

First Hit: Languid look at a family gathered to process a life-altering event.

During a day in Sintra, Portugal, Francois Cremont, AKA “Frankie” (Isabelle Huppert) has asked family and friends to gather to spend time together. Frankie is a famous actress and tries to keep a low profile while at this famous picturesque town. She walks with her husband, Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson), and a guide who says at one point, there are miracle healing waters in an undisclosed place near the hotel. You can tell by the way she looks, she’s not well.

Frankie’s invited her son Paul (Jeremie Renier) and close friend Irene (Marisa Tomei), hoping to make a love connection between them. However, Irene has brought her boyfriend Gary (Greg Kinnear) as they were both working on a “Star Wars” film in nearby Spain. Gary springs his plans to ask Irene to make their relationship more permanent by moving in together. He gives her a ring as a token of his intentions. Irene hesitates.

The closeness of Irene and Frankie is wonderfully portrayed during their long walk together and then the ride back to the hotel in a small open-air taxi. It’s a sweet and revealing moment.

Gary, sad at being shunned by Irene, runs into Frankie and learns from her that if Irene didn’t come right out and say yes to his proposal that they live together, it’s probably something she doesn’t want to do. Then Gary shifts and asks if Frankie would be interested in a script he’s thinking of turning into a film.

Sylvia and Ian Andoh (Vinette Robinson and Ariyon Bakare) are also at the hotel with their daughter Maya (Sennia Nanua). Sylvia and Ian’s marriage is in trouble, and Sylvia wants to move on. Their discussion at the café was impactful when she learns that he’s suspected her wanting to leave and tells her what his lawyer has stated.

The story has Maya getting away from her frustrated mother that results in a few sweet scenes of Maya taking a trolley to the beach, meeting a boy, and kissing him.

These scenes and more are not integrated very well into the overall theme of the film, which to me, was about Frankie trying to say goodbye.

There was little character development for all the characters, and therefore the audience is left to fill in the vast spaces left by the dialogue about past events.

Huppert is good as Frankie. However, I didn’t really care about her character or her story. Tomei was excellent, and she showed a fantastic range of emotions during her conversations with Gary and Frankie. Renier was strong as the son who was probably not very important to his famous mother, Frankie. Gleeson seemed very miscast and sort of bumbled through this role. I didn’t sense any chemistry between him and Frankie and didn’t see how they could have been married. Robinson was dynamic as a woman who wanted to leave her husband because she didn’t feel like there was anything left for her in her relationship. Bakare was good as Sylvia’s husband, who loved his wife but knew she really wanted to leave. Nanua was terrific as the young girl who went to explore the coastal town and discovered more about herself. Kinnear was well cast as an opportunist. Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias wrote this bland screenplay. The dialogue never really seemed to go anywhere and seem to fall into a state of languishment. Sachs directed this film, and I’m not sure what it is he really wanted to say or express.

Overall: There was little in this film about human nature, but Sintra seems like a beautiful place to visit.

Live by Night

First Hit:  Despite wonderful sets, cars, and clothes, this story meanders and fizzles.

Ben Affleck has directed, written and acted in some wonderful and even great films. The premise of this film was strong, where Joe Coughlin (Affleck), a product of the streets of Irish Boston, does not want to be beholden to his brother Deputy Police Chief Thomas Coughlin (Brendan Gleeson) nor any of the mob leaders, while being a criminal. However, because of his affection with a mob leader’s girlfriend Emma Gould (Sienna Miller), he gets blackmailed into working for Italian mobster Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone) to save his butt.

He and his running partner Dion Bartolo (Chris Messina) head to Tampa to build, manage and run a bootleg Rum business. In Tampa he works with Esteban Suarez (Miguel J. Pimental) and his sister Graciela (Zoe Saldana) to obtain Molasses for rum making. There is immediate chemistry between Joe and Graciela and it appears that Joe will find love again after losing Emma.

To take control of the Tampa market, he finds out what Police Chief Figgis (Chris Cooper) will tolerate and support. During the consolidation, he uses force and his manipulative style and rubs many of the town folks the wrong way, many of them with the KKK. One of those people RD Pruitt (Matthew Maher), who is Figgis’s brother in law, and he implores Figgis to help him resolve this issue.

To add to all this increasingly complicated story setup, we have Figgis’s daughter Loretta (Elle Fanning) who heads to California to become a star. To gain leverage over Chief Figgis’s brother in-law, Joe uses photos of Loretta to persuade Chief Figgis to fully resolve the brother-in-law issue. Then Affleck adds more complications to this movie because the story has the market for Rum changing and prohibition coming to an end and he wants to find an alternative form of income.

After starting to build a gambling casino Loretta becomes a profit of sorts, by preaching morality and thereby ending this new path. This ends up creating new friction in Tampa as well as with his boss Pescatore and an Irish mob boss Albert White (Robert Glenister).

Yes, over complication in telling this story led to a long film that tried to have too much detail over an extended period of time. Despite creating beautiful elegantly constructed sets, period automobiles that would satisfy any collector, and costumes that were stylistically sublime, only a few of the characters got older over the twenty or so years covered in this film and Affleck wasn’t one of them.

Affleck was good in this role and his intelligence and smart-alecky way worked for the character. However, he didn’t age in this film that covered many years from beginning to end. Miller was wonderful as an Irish girl that only was out for some laughs and a good time. Messina was great as Affleck’s side-kick and partner. Loved his energy in this role. Girone was strong as the Italian mobster. Pimental was good as the Cuban connection for molasses. Saldana was very strong as Pimental’s sister and Affleck’s lover. Cooper was pointedly effective as the Tampa Police Chief and caring father. Fanning was sublime as the re-born preacher. Maher was wonderfully unhinged as a guy who wanted his cut but didn’t want to do anything for it. Glenister was very good as the Irish mobster. Gleeson was perfect as Affleck’s brother, giving him space where needed and buttoning him down as well. Affleck wrote and directed this film. Problem seemed to be there was too much story to tell and he couldn’t trim his concept into something that filmgoers would sit, watch and like. It just seemed to meander.

Overall:  This isn’t a film to sit though unless you like just seeing beautiful sets, great cars, wonderful clothes, and some great looking people.

In the Heart of the Sea

First Hit:  Started interestingly, ended good, but the large middle was monotonous and slowly sank into the dark of the sea.

Films based in the ocean with underwater sequences have a higher likeliness of not being good. I’m not sure why except they become dark and slow.

Yet, films shot inside submarines and underwater tend to be better (Like: Hunt for Red October 1990 or Run Silent Run Deep 1958) as my dad would have attested to. He probably watched the latter more than 20 times and could recite the dialogue of every character. Why? Probably because submarine films are character based while ocean films must have ocean characters. Of course the film "Jaws" would be an exception.

This story is about a whale called Moby Dick and how Herman Melville wrote this famous story. The view of the story is from one of the survivors of a multi-year whaling adventure which included 90 days of being stranded on the ocean in a dinghy.

The survivor Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson and the young Tom/Thomas portrayed by Tom Holland) is being interviewed by Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) about the experience he had when the whale scuttled the Essex after almost 2 years hunting whales. Moby destroyed the ship and left the remaining crew to drift.

The other part of the story is about the disagreements and personality differences between Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) and First Mate Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth). This initial focus of the film was interesting as was Melville’s interview with Nickerson. However, the rest of the film tried to be interesting through visuals and very little on the strength or weaknesses of the individuals and when they tried it wasn’t very interesting.

Hemsworth was OK but there seemed to be little depth to his character. Walker was mediocre as the privileged captain. Holland was good as the young seaman learning how to me a man. Whishaw was very good in his small part as Melville. Gleeson was the spirit of this film and the best part of the film. Charles Leavitt wrote a so so script for most of the characters except Gleeson and Melville. Ron Howard didn’t come close to creating the masterpiece I think he wanted.

Overall:  The previews I saw telegraphed this uninteresting film.

Calvary

First Hit: Acting is extremely strong in this film about a priest paying a price for other abusive priests’ behaviors.

The Catholic Church has been in the press for the last 10+ years for all the sexual abuse priests subjected to children in their parishes.

This film is about one innocent priest receiving punishment for his peers by one a man who was abuse every other day for years. The priest Father James (Brendan Gleeson), put on the robes after his wife died to live his life as a better person by giving to his community.

His daughter Fiona (Kelly Reilly) is looking for connection with her father because she felt abandoned both when her mom died and he went into the priesthood. The abused man tells the priest in confessional that he’s got a week to get his affairs in order because he’s going to be killed. He tells Father James to be on the beach in a week to be killed.

Father James is good friends with many of the towns’ folk and he is respected and admired, one of which is a writer (M. Emmet Walsh). In the last week of his life we watch Father James put his affairs in order and explore other options to saving his life.

Gleeson is sublime in his role as a man who has found the priesthood to be a path by which he can give guidance and his learned lessons back to the community. Reilly is wonderful as his lost daughter trying to better understand her life and how to be happy. Jack Brennan was outstanding as one of the abused people. Walsh was great to see. His character emanates into film with gentle job. John Michael McDonagh wrote and directed these outstanding actors with clarity and purpose.

Overall: This was a very good film that touches directly on the latter effect of priestly abuse.

The Raven

First Hit:  At times tedious and slow, other times engaged and watchable.

This film had some possibilities but I’d be hard pressed to understand why it didn’t work when looked at as a whole film.

This story is basically about someone who decides to make real the stories of Edgar Allan Poe (played by John Cusack) as a way to get Poe to kill himself. This person determines that the way to do this is to hold Poe’s girlfriend Emily (played by Alice Eve) hostage.

Emily’s father Captain Hamilton (played by Brendan Gleeson) dislikes Poe because Poe is usually drunk and has little inspiration to write more great stories. He’s against Poe but there is little story line to give this some credence.

I didn’t see the chemistry or connection between Poe and Emily. Detective Fields (played by Luke Evans) is the guy investigating the crimes modeled after Poe’s stories but he allows Captain Hamilton to push him around too much. As this point the movie meanders, but it was nice to see aspects of Poe’s tales shown on the screen.

Cusack is intelligent enough to carry off being Poe. Eve was OK but I never saw much of a real connection with Poe to make it work that they would die for each other. Gleeson is righteously arrogant enough to carry off his role as protective father. Evans is good as the detective but there is little to validate his credentials as head detective. Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare wrote the script which meandered at the beginning and tightened up in the end. James McTeigue directed this film. At times it seemed under control and with clear direction while at other times I was fully disengaged as I waited for the next relevant scene.

Overall:  Despite Cusack’s intelligent portrayal of Poe, this film didn’t have enough to make it very good.