Where'd You Go, Bernadette

First Hit: Not everyone will appreciate and engage with this film, and I did.

This film runs and works on many different levels, and it only works because of the fantastic performance of Cate Blanchett as Bernadette Fox.

I laughed out loud numerous times and in a theater with only thirty people, often I was the only one. However, as the film went on, others seemed to join me as the amazing Blanchett showed us the complexity and depth of this character. One such scene is when she walks into a store, comments to the sales staff that they have a wonderful Chihuly, and the salesgirl is stupidly stunned because she has no idea what Bernadette is referring to. Because I’m aware of Chihuly’s work, I saw it right away and therefore was fully prepared, got her reference, and felt that I was in on the joke as it evolved.

Bernadette is married to Elgie (Billy Crudup), and they have got a young teen daughter named Bee Branch (Emma Nelson) who is getting ready to go to boarding school for her high school education. They are living in Seattle because Elgie created a technology product company that was purchased by Microsoft. He continues to work with Microsoft developing new high tech innovations.

Early in the film, we see that Bernadette’s quirky behavior and Elgie’s work patterns have created a deep divide in their relationship. The story also points out how close Bee Branch and her mother are. Dutifully Bernadette picks up Bee Branch from school each day, and this is where we learn how disliked Bernadette is with the other mothers when Audrey (Kristen Wiig) makes fun of her and her quirkiness to anyone who is within earshot. Audrey and Bernadette, who live next door to each other, have a relationship filled with animosity.

One of the quirky things Bernadette does is use her phone to dictate all the things she wants to be done. These commands go to a personal assistant in India. An example of the types of orders she gives the assistant include “I need a fishing vest,” and one arrives at her home via Amazon.com. There are other scenes with this assistant in which Bernadette is writing an antagonist email to someone, or requesting medication that will help her not get seasick, and making a dental appointment along with other life tasks.

Although she’s afraid of being around people and doesn’t like boats, Bernadette and Elgie agree to take Bee Branch to Antarctica as a middle school graduation reward.

One day while Bernadette is visiting the Seattle Library, a young woman comes up to her and asks to take a picture of her. Bernadette is clearly annoyed because of the intrusion, and the woman insists that Bernadette is her hero because of what she brought to the world of architecture. The woman mentions an online video of Bernadette’s career.

Arriving home, Bernadette grabs her computer and begins to watch the video, and we get the opportunity to know more about Bernadette’s artistic and creative architecture skills. For the audience, it is a moment where we begin to understand this fantastic creative person.

But it is when Bernadette meets up with one of her former associate architects (Laurence Fishburne) that Bernadette’s story spills, and I mean spills, out of her in one long rant. The power of her being able to talk to a fellow architect, who will understand her, is powerful. After a long spilling of her story, I loved it when Fishburne says something like, “is that it”? “Are you finished”?

He tells her what the audience is slowly learning, she needs to get back to work, creating. However, through her quirky life and other incidents, her husband has become increasingly concerned about her behavior. But it’s when the FBI contacts him and tells him that Bernadette’s online assistant is really a Russian operative who is going to steal all their money that he sets up an intervention.

How Bernadette resolves her struggles with her neighbor Audrey, her husband, and her internal demons is the rest of the film and story.

Blanchett is absolutely sublime as Bernadette. It is by far and away the best performance of the year by an actor (or actress). I loved how she pulled me into her madness and how I fully understood what she was going through. Wiig was outstanding as the long-time neighbor who tried to put on a superior face about her family life only to realize that there was envy about Bernadette and Bee Branch’s relationship. Nelson was outstanding as Bee Branch. I loved how her faith in her best friend, her mom, was successfully tested. Crudup was excellent as the distracted focused but loving husband and father. Holly Gent and Richard Linklater wrote an engrossing screenplay and were deeply rewarding and entertaining. Linklater also directed the film.

Overall: If you go to see this film, you’ve got to be ready to accept and dive into Bernadette from the beginning, because if you do, you’ll be rewarded in the end.

Downsizing

First Hit:  Slow, tedious, and, at times, funny and the only thing that made it worthwhile was Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran.

Tran doesn’t appear until the last third of the film, but she changes the film and energetically makes the film interesting and better. Up until then the main character, Paul Safranek (Matt Damon), is generally depressed and lacks any energy.

Damon is too good an actor to phone it in, and therefore he must have been delivering what director and writer Alexander Payne wanted.

There is a point to the film and it’s about how humans are systematically destroying the planet. Norwegian scientist Dr. Jorgen Asbjornsen (Rolf Lassgard) wanting to find a way to slow down the destruction, comes up with making people smaller. In this case a normal 6’ person gets shrunk to about 5”. Asbjornsen figures it will allow humans to consume fewer resources and give us time to figure out how to save the planet.

The upside to downsizing, as it is called, is that your money is worth about one hundred times as much. This makes it worthwhile for people to downsize as they can afford to live a life of luxury. Paul and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) are struggling financially and if they choose to downsize they can life a great life.

As Paul finds himself living a less than stellar life as a downsized person he has some regrets. When he meets, and spends a bit of time with his neighbor Dusan Mirkovic (Christoph Waltz) his life begins to change.

However, it really begins to change and the film begins to get interesting when Paul gets involved with helping Tran. Tran organized and led protests in Vietnam, survived prison time for her involvement, was downsized by the government, and escaped Vietnam inside flat screen shipping box. She became famous for this escape from Vietnam so Paul recognized her when he saw her.

Given her past, she works to help anyone who is struggling to survive in the downsized city they live in. Paul becomes inspired by her.

The visuals of the downsized world are excellent. The comedy comes from this and some of the interactions between the characters.

Damon was mediocre and I don’t know if this was a poor performance by him or by the script and direction. There were times I could sense and feel Damon trying to make the scene better but to no avail. Waltz was mediocre as well. He’s another reliable actor who can deliver and I’ve got to believe that script and direction failed him. Lassgard was OK as the discovering scientist and leader of the movement to downsize and survive. Wiig had a very small part in this film and her scenes seemed strained and pressed. Chau was priceless. It was worth the price of admission just to watch her perform in this film. She was spot-on sublime. Payne and Jim Taylor wrote the script which ended up being restrictive and pressed. Payne had no business directing this because the vision was too restrictive as the acting showed. He had great tools but it didn’t work.

Overall:  I had high hopes for this film and liked the characters, but it came up short, real short.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl

First Hit:  Great view of the 70’s and how one young girl grows through her budding sexuality.

The late 1960’ through the mid-late 1970’s were ripe with open sexuality and drug use. This film captures the mood and feeling of this era with some spot on dialogue, scenes and cinema-graphic feel.

The story is about a young girl, Minnie (Bel Powley), who wants to be touched, love and be loved. Her father Pascal (Christopher Meloni) is long out of the picture and his former wife Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) lives the life of partying with drugs and drink. Minnie’s younger sister Gretel (Abby Watt) and she lead their own lives although they are just teenagers.

Charlotte's boyfriend, joining her in this chosen lifestyle, is a vitamin pill producer named Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard). When Monroe makes slight advances towards Minnie, she responds with enthusiasm and their affair starts. Minnie likes her budding sexuality and her sex with Monroe becomes her life's focus. Monroe just cannot seem to help himself around Minnie.

She documents this new adventure and change in her life by drawing cartoons in her notebook and recording her thoughts on cassette tapes. When her mom finds out what has happened, the expected blowup transpired and then takes some odd turns. Minnie works through her pain in her own way. What struck me about the film was the way it was shot.

The director and cinematographer, really captured the way films looked back in the 1970’s. The strengths of the performances effectively carried the theme and attitudes of the era.

Powley was fantastic as the girl looking for love and affection. She created a strong feeling of young angst while also displaying the ability to grow into a new level of maturity. Wiig was strong as a mother of the 70’s. She was able to exemplify the sense of the era. I know because I was a young father in the 70’s as well. Skarsgard was very good as the guy who couldn’t help himself around the young sexually charged Minnie. Watt was perfect as the annoying, yet loving, sister. Meloni was effective as the guilt-ridden intellectual absent father. Marielle Heller wrote a strong script displaying a great feel for the era as well as Minnie’s view of the world. In her direction, Heller did a great job of creating a perfect sense and feel of the times.

Overall:  Although a difficult film to watch, the strong story makes up for it.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

First Hit:  Uneven, partially compelling and entertaining enough to keep me engaged.

Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is an anonymous film librarian for a major magazine. He daydreams about taking and having adventures in his life especially when they include co-worker Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig) whom he likes but cannot seem to connect with. An example the film uses is when he cannot even leave her a wink on a dating site because his profile is so boring and lacking information.

The magazine is going to be going digital and therefore his and most of his co-workers’ jobs will be eliminated. Leading the change in the magazine is Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott). But for the last issue, famous photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) sends a negative (#25) for the magazine to use.

However, Mitty and his co-worker Hernando (Adrian Martinez) cannot find it in the role that was sent by O’Connell. Where this negative actually resides was no surprise and easily deduced. However because Hendricks is pushing to see the negative and Mitty doesn’t have it, he decides to find O’Connell. This trip takes him to explore many frozen north countries and towns.

Some of these scenes and cinematography are magnificent and make one want to go visit them. However, the drunken Icelandic helicopter pilot scenes weren’t necessary and put in for comedy relief. Another one of many writing and direction errors. Yes, there is enough going for the film it is watchable.

Stiller was, at times, fun to watch and does his role as well as he can do it. However, other scenes seemed to just move the plot along. These poorly conceived scenes are part acting issues but poor directing - by Stiller. Penn was fun to watch and to see his natural aging bringing out a deeper character was good. Scott was both good and poor in his role. The beard was a poor wardrobe and character choice. Wiig is one of the better and more consistent parts of this film. Steve Conrad wrote an over ambitious script by trying to put too many twists into it. Stiller, as previously mentioned, tried to do too much with the film (think – diving from Subway platform into a window) and at other times didn’t do enough.

Overall:  This was entertaining enough to watch and stay with it.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

First Hit:  You’ve read it from me before and again here – I’ve got to stop seeing stupid inane Will Ferrell films.

This film is not only inane; it is not funny except in very few places. What’s worse is that not one character is interesting, nor is any one believable with a partial exception of Christina Applegate (as Ron Burgundy’s wife Veronica).

The depth of this film is about as deep as tissue paper.

The premise is that Burgundy (Ferrell) is fired from his news job, kicks around with different stuff but gets a chance to become part of a 24 hours news network. To make his program popular he reports car chases and the like.

At the end of the film, he admits that what he was reporting wasn’t really news and the same statement bodes for this film – what he is doing here isn't a film – it is a mess.

Ferrell is Ferrell there is no acting just him acting stupidly. Applegate was the only person on the screen that was remotely believable. Steve Carell (as Brick Tamland) is one of Burgundy’s news team is occasionally funny (owner of the most laughs in this film) but I don’t understand why he would take a role like this. Paul Rudd (as Brian Fantana) as another one of Burgundy’s team, is wasted. David Koechner (as Champ Kind) as the last of Burgundy’s team is also a wasted role. Kristen Wiig in a small role as Tamland’s newly found girlfriend was OK and engaging. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay wrote this sophomoric script and McKay directed this mess, messily.

Overall:  I need to stay home and not see Ferrell films as they ARE a waste of my time.