mother!

First Hit:  It was not very interesting, was poorly scripted and had little to offer.

Director Darren Aronofsky probably had something to say by making this film, but I can only come up with snide thoughts like:  The battle between control and chaos is difficult. One needs to ask their partner before inviting people into the house. People like Him (Javier Bardem), need to have their ego stroked. Well-known artists, Him, would sacrifice his family for outside admiration. People will give the artists they admire leeway to act poorly. Life is a never-ending sequence of the same stuff over and over again. I could go on.

One troubling aspect about this film was that Darren had some great actors, but Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) seemed like she was saying lines and occasionally her actions were more engaging. Him seemed to take on the poor struggling artist role rather mediocrely. Together they were a shipwreck ready to happen throughout the entire film.

The story is that Mother has rebuilt a very large house because it burned down in a fire. It was Him’s family home. She’s doing this because she loves Him and the poems that he’s written in the past. However, he’s had writer's block since the fire burned down his family’s home.

One day, Man (Ed Harris), a chain smoking doctor, shows up at their home thinking it is a place where he can rent a room while doing research. Without asking Mother, Him tells Man that he can stay there as long as he wants. Feeling pushed aside, Mother reluctantly goes along with this.

Then the rest of Man’s family shows up. Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) is pushy and is very passive aggressive while Mother waits on her. All the while Him likes their company. Woman tells Mother that she needs to have a baby to really know what life is about.

During an argument, Him and Mother have make-up sex and she gets pregnant. Also, Woman and Man’s boys come to the house and start a big fight and one of the boys gets killed.

With Mother being pregnant and the killing of the boy, Him writes another poem that causes a national stir and now thousands of people come to the house to both grieve the dead boy and the celebration of this new poem. This makes Mother angry as she tries to kick everyone out because they are wrecking the house she built.

Then the film heads into over weird with rituals and demons and other stuff. Why? I cannot tell you why even if I knew. It is beyond my understanding of the point and purpose of this story and film.

Lawrence gives a uneven performance. It was both difficult and easy to understand her love and devotion based on whatever scene she was in. Bardem had an easier role of being egocentric and caring about himself more than the people for which he professed his love. Harris was OK as the initial interloper. Pfeiffer was interesting because her sarcasm and disdain towards Mother was well done. Aronofsky wrote a confusing and unclear script that came off as being overindulgent towards bizarre behavior. If the audience doesn’t get the point, why do a film like this? As director, the point was lost in the script, and therefore the acting wasn’t reflective of a cohesive story leaving the audience lost.

Overall:  This was self-indulgence at its finest and a waste of my time.

Noah

First Hit:  Initially bored, story interpretation unbelievable, and a few minor amazing scenes.

I enjoy watching biblical stories and a director’s interpretation of this book. I was put off by the beginning of the film with the screen captions stating the story of the beginning. Then we were led into an interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, then the story of Seth.

Then we are introduced to angels that ended up as moving rocks which are their prisons for assisting human kind. Director Darren Aronofsky shows the earth as mostly barren because of Cain’s clan mining of glowing rocks. First, I don’t believe for a minute that the Earth would be that barren in that time period by clans of people mining rocks.

There was a hint of technology by showing the audience some of the deserted mines, yet there was a primitiveness to everyone that seemed incongruent. Another item that didn’t work for me was the different accents of the actors. We had Australian/New Zealand (Russell Crowe as Noah), English/Wales (Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah), American (Jennifer Connelly as Naameh – Noah’s wife), English (Emma Watson as Ila), and it goes on.

There was no attempt to change this by the Director or Actors. Some of the highlights were some of the shots. One in particular that took my breath away was a shot of dusk, Noah and Naameh were silhouetted on a slight round hill against the sky – truly one of the most beautiful shots I’ve ever seen on film. I was also very impressed with the scene where Noah tells the story of life on earth because they used evolution and biblical terms and mixed them very well. It was simple and perfect.

I thoroughly enjoyed the full engagement Watson gave in her performance – it was stellar. Crowe also gave his all to his performance and I believed that he believed he was doing “the creator’s word”.

Crowe, as I previously stated was very good. He emanated the strength of the role and story. Connelly seemed like a fish out of water – almost too sophisticated for the part. Hopkins was cute more than anything. I got that he probably enjoyed being a Yoda of sorts. Watson was sublime. Her innocence, beauty, and wisdom were all present and forthcoming in this role. Aronofsky and Ari Handel wrote an uneven script and at times implausible. Aronofsky’s direction followed the unevenness and implausibility of his own script.

Overall:  I was severely disappointed by this film.

Black Swan

First Hit: Natalie Portman captures the character and is mesmerizing although the film is a bit excessive in its representation.

I really left the theater with two main thoughts: Portman was outstanding as Nina Sayers (Swan Queen) and is my pick for Best Actress for this year. Secondly, why did the director (Darren Aronofsky) over do the visualizations. Why did he feel he needed an overtly hammer the audience in expressing the internal pain of an obsessed ballerina?

Portman brought everything that was needed to this part. An example of this overt visualization was when Nina was getting ready to dance she removes one shoe. Her toes are stuck together because she spends so much time in her tight ballet slippers. With some pain she pulls her toes apart. Then she takes off the other shoe and Aronofsky shows us a fully webbed foot.

I didn’t need that overkill because I got the point with the first foot. This is the downside of the film; overkilling points. The amount of blood (real and perceived) in this film along with an Exorcist kind of leg breaking in one bedroom scene was also excessive. However I’m clear that the journey we take with Nina from living the life of an obsessed ballerina trying to please everyone but herself, was extraordinary.

I’ve enjoyed ballet as a season ticket holder to both the American Ballet Theater and the San Francisco Ballet. I’ve seen all forms of dance from Joe Goode to Baryshnikov’s White Oak Project. The practice it takes to perform at these levels borders on being fanatically possessed at times. The result when a performer lets the feeling and the art of the story come through them with their technical abilities can be phenomenal.

Portman captures all this but to her overall demise. She is living with her fanatical mother Erica Sayers (played by Barbara Hershey – The Queen) who wants and doesn’t want her daughter to succeed. Erica was also a dancer and at age 28 got pregnant with Nina which ended her dancing career.

Resentful yet supportive, Erica is living through, for and against her daughter’s success. She has created such an insulated world for Nina that this 20 year old girl lives in a room full of stuff animals and ballet musical boxes. But because of her relentless devotion, Artistic Director Thomas Leroy (played by Vincent Cassel – The Gentleman) selects Nina to dance his new version of Swan Lake.

The Swan Queen will dance both the white swan and black swan parts. Thomas sees Nina as the perfect white swan but says she must let go of everything inside that she uses to control her life so that she can also become the Black Swan.

Lily (played by Mila Kunis – Black Swan) a young dancer from San Francisco joins this company is the prime competition for the part because she dances the Black Swan part perfectly. She is an intuitive dancer who seduces and is not seduced.

With all the players in place we have the ballet being danced in real life as real characters while also in the performance of Swan Lake.

Portman is the best woman actress on the screen this year. The brief moments that she breaks out of her afraid obsessed filled life and gives us the Black Swan within her is perfect. It is believable, powerful and the type of range one rarely sees in a single part for an actress in a single film. There are just a few glimpses of this extraordinary movement, but sitting in the audience, I felt it. That is the mark of this performance – I felt her fully. Hershey was equally great to watch as the mother who wanted her daughter to both fail and succeed where she herself didn’t. Kunis is wonderful to watch as the free spirited Lily. Cassel was perfect Artistic Director pushing things to the limit with his cast. Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz wrote a very good screen play. Director Darren Aronofsky over did his job in some aspects of the film as previously explained, however he was masterful at getting strong performances from his cast and the mood of the film, dark, not slick, and glaring at times was very good.

Overall: I cannot forget Portman’s performance and that makes it worthwhile.

The Wrestler

First Hit: Mickey Rourke is phenomenal as Randy “The Ram” Robinson an over the hill aging wrestler doing the only thing he knows how to do.

I was mesmerized by this film from the very opening scenes.

The film is shot with a roughness and edge that complements and accentuates the characters in the film.

This is a story about people we may have watched in person or seen on TV. We always knew the wrestling matches were choreographed but this never meant that these men didn’t suffer in pain from their efforts in the ring.

This film shows this suffering, the underside of their body abuse, and the deep comradely among the men who actually fight and promote the event. Randy was once the top wrestler and with age he has slipped little by little into the forgotten world of has-beens who fight in front of small, but adoring, crowds.

There is one scene where he and some other once famous wrestlers are at a autograph signing and mostly they just sit there in silence in an empty room while a hand full of fans come through and get a “polaroid” picture and autograph. It is such a telling scene of how time has passed them by.

The Ram visits an aging lap dancer named Cassidy (played by Marisa Tomei) for dances and conversation. Like him she is caught up on her own world and struggles and trying to find her own way out of her life. Both of them have children and Ram has a couple of very powerful and revealing scenes with his daughter Stephanie (played convincingly by Evan Rachel Wood).

Other scenes that round out the character are when the neighborhood kids wake him up, from sleeping overnight in his van, so that they can wrestle with him.

And a scene where he reluctantly works behind a deli counter but slowly gets into the people he is serving and this beautiful fun kind spirit jumps out of him and you, as you watch this scene.

Rourke is so good in this film that he easily gives the best performance by an actor in 2008 – no question. He will probably get a nomination for an Oscar but his reputation may keep him from receiving it. Tomei is incredibly strong and also deserves a Oscar nomination. Her performance shows a depth and strength that is very compelling and out shines her mostly partially nude scenes. Darren Aronofsky directed this film with a clear vision and gives us a slice of life we rarely see.

Overall: Easily one of the 3 best films of the year. This is a must see film whether you like wrestling or not because it is a deeply inspired, well acted and moving slice of life.