Book Club

First Hit: Although the age ranges they portrayed didn’t work, as a comedy it was out-loud funny.

The actual age ranges between these women (Fonda 81 & Steenburgen 65) was too wide ranging for me to believe that they were nearly lifelong friends. This part of the story needed cleaning up. However, once I got past this, I found the story funny, poignant, and enjoyable.

At the time I went to see this film, 11:00 AM, there was a small crowd of older women. I think I was the only man in the audience. And initially, they were laughing at just about everything. I was only mildly amused.

Yet something happened as the film went on, I found myself enjoying the pointed jabs at age, men, sex, and technology. What made it work was the actors themselves. They all have been around long enough for the audience to know them a little. The parts they played were perfect to how we know them.

The vehicle the story uses for these women to get together once a month is a Monthly Book club. They’ve been meeting monthly for over forty years and in doing so, they have learned to love and accept each other as they are.

Diane (Diane Keaton) was grounded in her flighty Annie Hall sort of way. Watching her slow build to telling her grown protective children that she was still capable of being happy, learning, and having fun experiences with a man was pointedly clear.

Vivian (Jane Fonda) played the rich I don’ need anyone loner was perfect. Jane has generally shown her skittishness towards being vulnerable and in this role, she has to become vulnerable with the man who shows up to her again after forty years.

Sharon (Candice Bergen) was the professional woman, who had her cat and her Federal Judgeship to keep her happy. After her divorce her husband Tom (Ed Begley Jr.) found love in someone one third his age. She said she couldn’t care less and was happy presiding over her courtroom until....

And Carol (Mary Steenburgen) was the only married woman in the group. Her husband Bruce (Craig T. Nelson) and her still liked sex. However, after his retirement party six months earlier, he was disinterested in her sexually and seemed lost.

Early in the film, the group meets and it’s Vivian’s turn to select a book. She chooses Fifty Shades of Grey. This gets all the women thinking about their sex life and eventually their love life.

Diane is afraid of flying and meets a very rich pilot Mitchell (Andy Garcia). Vivian runs into her old beau Arthur (Don Johnson) who is still in love with her. Sharon decides to try internet dating and meets up with George (Richard Dreyfus) an accountant and someone who really likes her. And Carol finds devious ways to try to get Bruce interested in sex again.

As you might imagine, older women finding that they are interested in love and intimacy is relevant to all people at any age.

Keaton was quirkily funny in both her actions (paddling a floating swan in a pool) and words. She can really shine when the role calls for it, and it does here. Fonda, I must admit, is someone I’ve adored for her intelligent skittishness towards men. Here she shows that she still has that power over me at 81. Bergen was the character I had the most reservations about. I never liked her TV role of Murphy Brown much, but here she shines. I loved her projections of herself on her contented cat. Steenburgen had the most difficult role because she was still in a relationship. However, the scene with the cop stopping her and Bruce after she spiked his beer with Viagra was funny. Nelson was very good as the reluctant husband finding his way after retirement. Garcia was excellent as the pilot who wanted to whisk Diane away. Johnson was very good as the very romantic younger man who still held a lot of love for Vivian. Dreyfus was funny and appropriately stuffy as the accountant that had found his match. Them getting out of the back seat of Sharon’s car was funny. Bill Holderman and Erin Simms wrote a script that worked for these actors. Holderman’s direction was strong enough to get me laughing out loud.

Overall: I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Youth

First Hit:  A sometimes odd, yet compelling film that created a beautiful ending allowing the audience to hear and see the soul of Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine).

Ballinger is on vacation in the Alps with his best friend Mick (Harvey Keitel) and daughter Lena Ballinger (Rachel Weisz). He’s a retired orchestra conductor and seems tired and disenchanted. As these elder men watch the younger people, they see the difference of today’s youth and their own youth.

Their kids are struggling in their relationship, Mick is trying to write a new screenplay, Fred is being asked to conduct again for the Queen of England, and Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) is attempting to find his character for a new film by watching the people at the hotel.

There are odd acts each evening in the backyard of the hotel as entertainment and as a distraction. The conversations between everyone are abstractly shown sometimes with context other times without. As Fred begins to come to grips with his feelings towards how music was his true love, not his wife or daughter; he slowly is able to discuss his poor parenting and his lack of being a good husband with his daughter. In the end, the performance he leads is beyond beautiful – it is the expression of his love.

Caine was excellent in his quiet way. His way of showing his character growing through this story is fantastic. Keitel is great as a friend and coming to grips with his fading director and writing talents. Jan Fonda, as Keitel’s actress muse Brenda Morel, is fantastic. Her biting cynicism is amazing. Dano is amazing as an actor finding a way to play a part and then letting the part go because he cannot relate or honor the character. Weisz is wonderful as the daughter learning to love her dad. Paolo Sorrentino wrote and directed the film. His dialogue, at times, is sublime. Other times some of the scenes came off a bit disjointed with the film’s purpose.

Overall:  The ending was worth the intermediary flaws.

This Is Where I Leave You

First Hit:  Moments of brilliance with moments of negating over the top behavior.

The Altman  family gathers together because the father has died. Hillary (Jane Fonda) is the widow and her 4 children come to pay their respects to their father. She states that their father wanted the children to sit 7 days of Shiva. Reluctantly the children sit in chairs that are too low to the floor and begin the process of relating to each other again.

This could have been a more powerful story with comedy woven in, however the behavior of the adult children, especially youngest son Phillip (Adam Driver), turned me off to what could have been a more compelling story. Scenes where he turns up the baby monitor, in front of all the guests, to hear his brother and sister-in-law have sex at their father’s Shiva was tasteless.

Yes, it was supposed to be funny but it came off as insensitive. Then there were the physical fight scenes – where the brothers were in fisticuffs with each other over petty stuff – just seemed to be more than needed. However, there were also great touching scenes of both the comedic and sensitive nature.

Sister Wendy (Tina Fey) hitting her brother Judd’s (Jason Bateman) former boss Wade (Dax Shepard) because he slept with Judd’s wife was priceless. Just as was the scene of the brothers smoking the pot left in their father’s jacket while in a classroom at the Jewish temple – very funny, revealing and a true family and brotherly like moment.

Bateman was effective as the guy who has lived a very controlled precise predictable life and has had it turned upside down. His character change to someone that is willing to add a bit of complication in his life was very good. Fey was adorable as the sister among 3 very different brothers. She held her own both based on the role as well as her acting strength. Corey Stoll (as oldest brother Paul) was very good. He definitely had the older responsible, stay with the family business attitude down. Driver was good, but I didn’t like the script for him. It made him seem both dumb and ridiculous and he was really neither. Rose Byrne (Penny Moore) as Bateman’s old childhood friend was fantastic. I would have liked more of her in the film. Fonda was a hit. She really had me each time she was on the screen. I’ve loved her since the 1960’s (Cat Ballou – 1965 – where I first enjoyed her dramatic and comedic turns). Shepard was strong as the affected self-absorbed Disc Jockey. Jonathan Tropper wrote an occasionally strong and often misguided script. Shawn Levy didn’t seem to have a really clear direction as to what he wanted: Drama with great laughs or a comedy with some high-school like behavior out of adults while dealing with a serious subject.

Overall:  This film had glimpses and the possibility of being much better than it ended up being.

The Butler (Original Title)

First Hit:  Some of the performances were outstanding while others were miscast and poor.

I do not like the ego of directors or writers who name their film with their name as part of the title. This film was originally called "The Butler" and now it is called and marketed as “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”.

I’m sure there are reasons why, but for me it taints a films’ integrity. Why? Because it means that the director (in this case) views himself as or more important than the film itself.

The best thing about this film was viewing changes in the civil rights movement through Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) life. Where he watched his mother being abused by the slave owner, his father shot by saying something about it to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and finally a black man being elected President of the United States. How it was portrayed by Whitaker, David Oyelowo, and Oprah Winfrey was excellent.

What didn’t work about this film? The representation of the Presidents Cecil served during his time in the White House. This is a great story about how a man learned how to serve with great strength of character and gained respect for his service and being of service. Although his home life was hard at times with his wife being an alcoholic and his oldest son becoming a radical of the sixties with the Black Panthers, he persevered these things as well as losing his youngest son in Vietnam and through it all he continued to be an honorable man.

Whitaker is wonderful and electric in this role. Winfrey is difficult to watch at the beginning because it is hard to separate Oprah from the role. If she acted more, she would be able to have the audience transcend her television persona more easily because she is a very good actress. Oyelowo is absolutely great as Whitaker’s son. Robin Williams as Dwight D. Eisenhower didn’t capture Dwight’s pace or energy. John Cusack did get the creepiness of Nixon but paled as the film moved on. James Marsden seemed more like Bobby Kennedy than John F. Kennedy. Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson was pathetic. Alan Rickman was slightly worse than Schreiber as Ronald Reagan. However, I though Jane Fonda was a priceless and fabulous choice as Nancy Reagan – she caught the look, feel and ways of Nancy. Danny Strong wrote a good script. Lee Daniels got good performances from some actors but the choice of others for their roles was very weak.

Overall:  The real story got slightly demeaned by the actors chosen to be Presidents.