The Dinner

First Hit:  Could have been more interesting and watchable without the distractions.

The previews had led me to believe that this might be a strong film about two estranged couples having dinner resolving an issue involving their sons. However, it seemed to be mostly a deep dive into Paul Lohman’s (Steve Coogan) mental illness and how his family works around it.

Paul and his wife Claire (Laura Linney) are meeting his brother Congressman Stan Lohman (Richard Gere) and his wife Katelyn (Rebecca Hall), for dinner at a very exclusive restaurant. Paul does not want to go, and we see him fade in and out of being present with what is going on. He is fascinated with the battle of Gettysburg.

Throughout the film, the director lobs us into Paul's fantasies, his issues with teaching students, and difficulty staying with and on one rational thought and discussion. Not that this wasn’t warranted to understand Paul’s state of mind, but that it did this so much and that the loud distorted sounds used during some of these scenes was difficult on my ears, and very distracting to the story.

All of this gets thrown into this dinner, where Stan gets interrupted by his aid to help get votes on a mental health bill he’s created. Each of the dinner guests, occasionally gets up and leaves the table for 10 or more minutes. The service, although exquisite, gets broken up by the transient way the dinner guests sit and leave. When a conversation starts at the table, it gets railroaded by Stan leaving to deal with a legislative issue, or Paul’s rants, or Claire and Katelyn’s attempts to settle the feuding brothers.

We are given additional hints at Paul's inabilities to deal with life when we learn that Claire had cancer and Paul struggled to visit his wife and take care of their son Michael (Charlie Plummer). Stan and his first wife Barbara (Chloe Sevigny) tried to intervene in Paul’s difficulty but was rebuffed. Stan and Barbara had two kids of their own Rick (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) and Beau (Miles J. Harvey) who Barbara and Stan adopted. Despite the broken relationship between Stan and Paul, the boys hung out together.

The subject that finally gets fully aired is that Michael lit a homeless person on fire while Rick watched. Beau threatened to make their murder public which will ruin the boy’s lives and Stan’s run for governor. We learn that Paul was not informed when it happened and he’s upset, Stan wants to turn the boys in and the mothers’ want to keep it quiet because the police have not figured out who was responsible for the death. They hope the event will be forgotten by the public.

As I previously stated, I really disliked the myriad of segues into Paul’s psychosis. I disliked that there was so little direct conversation around the dinner and only when the group goes into a small private room at the restaurant that there was any real discussion. I disliked the sound track of noises during Paul’s altered states.

However, I did like the dialogue that came up around being truthful and paying attention to one's conscious. Additionally, questions about right action and how best to keep family together were also very interesting. Overall, I thought the acting was very strong.

Coogan was amazing in his portrayal of a mentally ill man who could, at times, be very clear and wonderful. Linney was clearly strong as well. Her support and ability to calm Paul down and keep him somewhat present was very good. Gere was excellent as a congressman who also discovered he had to start showing up to his family. Hall was outstanding. Her big scene was telling Stan how she’s the one who has held his family together, raised boys, and showed up for and to him every day, was perfect. Plummer was strong as the boy who’s got struggles and issues needing assistance. Adepero Oduye (as Congressman Lohman’s assistant Nina) was very good in how she kept her cool during the dinner and when pushed by Katelyn. Oren Moverman wrote and directed a convoluted and confusing script and screenplay that overdid the segues into Paul’s neuroses.

Overall:  Although the subjects of family, family history, doing what is right and dealing with mental illness are good subjects, this film meandered and wasn’t clearly focused.

Nocturnal Animals

First Hit:  Outstanding acting in a film that lives to the feeling of its name.

The opening credits are viewed on the backdrop of one of the oddest art displays I’ve ever seen. The display is of very large and overweight naked women dancing live. The rest of the exhibit is of live heavy women in various positions on platforms in the gallery.

The art gallery owner is Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) who lives with her husband in an amazingly large modern house in the LA/Hollywood hills. Her husband Hutton (Armie Hammer) is distant from her, appears to be wealthy, but also indicates there’s money trouble. His illusive and distant behavior points to something else going on in his life and then he abruptly tells Susan he has to go back to New York for business.

Susan receives a package from her ex-husband Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal) and it is a book he’s written. She opens the book and sees that it is dedicated to her and the title, “Nocturnal Animal”, was Edward’s nickname for her. As she lies awake in bed, she begins reading the book hoping to help her sleep. However, the story is very intense and it peaks her interest immediately.

From here the film slips in and out of the book’s story, the present time of her reading the book, and past reflections of her former husband and their life together. The past story is about how much she loved Edward and finding that her mom, Anne Sutton (Laura Linney), may have been right that eventually Susan would seek out someone more financially successful and strong than Edward.

The book’s story is very intense as it describes Tony Hastings (Jake Gyllenhaal in a different role), his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and daughter India (Ellie Bamber) being driven off the road during a road trip through Texas. The men shoving them off the road Ray, Lou and Turk (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Karl Glusman and Robert Aramayo respectively) are local miscreants known for having a slightly troubled past.

The story continues where they give the Hasting family a hard time and end up separating Tony from his wife and daughter. Eventually finding assistance, Sherriff Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon) takes the case to help Tony find his family. Finding them raped and killed, Tony is crushed while Andes makes it his focused mission to find the killers.

As the film slips from the present of Susan reading the book, to her memories of her relationship with Edward and then to the intense book she’s reading, you can tell that she’s unhappy with her current lot in life, and wants to accept an invitation offered to her by Edward to meet for dinner.

She says yes to the dinner invitation and doesn’t seemed surprised by the outcome.

I really liked the way this film moved between the three different sets and scenes. The coolness and sadness of the current time, the intensity and fury of the book’s story of Tony, and the ideal and joy in Susan and Edward’s budding relationship of the past. These stories and their settings were wonderfully choreographed and  delivered. Additionally, the  transitions between them were wonderfully done.

Gyllenhaal continues to deliver top notch performances. The way he delivers his two characters which have a common theme was excellent. This is an Award worthy performance. Adams, is divine. She’s perfect as the hauntingly beautiful “Nocturnal Animal”. Sitting in the theater, I could feel her struggle. Just as with her role in “Arrival”, Adams is showing everyone why she is so good. Shannon is really on his game here. I’ve really come to appreciate his work and here as an intense, "I don’t give a fuck" sheriff, he’s wonderful. He is this role. Fisher and Bamber were wonderful as Tony’s wife and daughter. I also loved how director Tom Ford used their red hair to tie in Adams’ character as well. It created connections and a tie between the book and Susan’s current life. Hammer was perfect in this small role. Taylor-Johnson, Glusman and Aramayo were great as the books antagonists and the way for Tom to express his rage and gain strength in the end. Linney is perfect as Susan’s well-healed mother. Her look and use of language was great. Ford wrote and directed this film with a clear vision for what he wanted. His effort is worthy for Award consideration to say the least.

Overall:  This is a dark moody, thriller that really worked.

Sully

First Hit:  An amazing, crisp, and well-acted film about a remarkable event showing how this pilot made an extraordinary set of decisions under extreme pressure.

I was profoundly affected by how much Tom Hanks (as U.S. Airways pilot Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger) embodied the deeply rooted sense of responsibility for the 155 people on the plane he had to land in the Hudson River.

Like Sully, I was fully engrossed in wondering about everyone on the plane. The concern is demonstrated in so many ways:  1) Sully going up and down the aisle ensuring everyone is out of the plane. His last look towards the back of the plane before he exited was telling.  2) When he asked one of the officers of the pilot’s union to help him find out if everyone got off the plane.  3) the release of the subtle out-breath while being given a physical when he’s told, the survivor's count was 155.

We get multiple views of the event. We get a glimpse of what the air traffic controller went through, his heart being in the job. We get to see how the airline's insurance company and investigators aimed to have the water landing be pilot error. We see the closeness and distance Sully has with his wife Lorraine (Laura Linney).

We get to embrace the pilot and co-pilot (Aaron Eckhart as Jeff Skiles) relationship and how this event brought them closer together. Lastly, we the audience, see a public hearing about the event. All of this in a crisp well executed 96 minutes.

The dream sequences were powerful and were reminders of how a commercial airline plane can create enormous damage to a city. The film editing of the differing views of this event, was perfect. The conclusion, even though it is already public knowledge, is wonderfully suspenseful and gratifying.

Hanks is superb. He embodies the weight of the role of pilot and all the decisions Sully has made over the years. I would want all my pilots to be this man. Linney is good as Sully’s wife. While we never see them together, and her relationship with Sully during this film is solely by phone, it works, she’s able to bridge the gap. Eckhart is wonderful and strong as co-pilot Skiles. He was perfect. Todd Komarnicki wrote an very strong engaging script. Clint Eastwood’s direction was sublime. He captured so many aspects of the event and did this in a clear concise manner.

Overall:  This is a wonderfully executed film depicting a set of life saving decisions made clearly and with concise conviction.

Genius

First Hit:  Strong acting and intense scenes made this film “Genius.”

I loved the intensity Jude Law put into defining Thomas Wolfe as a wildly imaginative and talkative man.

I’ve no idea how Wolfe actually was, but there was a believability in the constant flow of non-stop dialogue that really worked for me. His verbose and expressive nature supported the extremely large manuscripts he brought in to Max Perkins’ (Colin Firth) office.

Perkins who was editor for F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway was clearly the kind of person who could manage Wolfe. Imagine supporting this verbose author to edit down a five-thousand-page manuscript by cutting over 90,000 words into something both printable and readable.

Perkins, being very centered and with five daughters, found Wolfe both interesting and almost like his son. Wolfe was living with and being supported by Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman) who fed him and helped him in a muse type way all while she was producing plays. This film set in the late 1920s – mid 1930s, was well staged.

The sense and feel of Max’s office, the street scenes, and the view from Wolfe’s first apartment were spectacular and reflective of the times. The intense dinner with Perkins, his wife Louise (Laura Linney), Bernstein, and Wolfe was filled with forceful possessive dialogue and ended up defining all four characters.

Louise, a playwright on her own, being shunted aside while the jealous Bernstein and flamboyant self-serving Wolfe monopolizing the discussion and Max, as usual, being peacemaker. I fully bought into the script and thought the direction of the characters was superb.

Firth was fantastic. I loved that he wore a hat most of the time as it was very reflective of his style and the times. Law was intensely amazing. He had me believing the forceful and penetrating inner life Wolfe was leading. Kidman was perfect. I love how she can express so much in such a controlled way. Linney was sublime as Firth’s wife and keeper of their home while supportive of Max’s drama filled client’s lives. John Logan wrote an excellent screenplay. Michael Grandage did a wonderful job of keeping the film moving along and allowing the characters to breathe.

Overall:  I thoroughly enjoyed the interplay of all the characters in this film.

Holmes

First Hit:  A slow meandering beginning that builds momentum towards being a more interesting film at the end.

This film is about forgiveness, aging, kindness, facts and uncovering the real story of Sherlock Holmes.

We meet Sherlock (Ian McKellen) when he’s 93 years old. He’s retired, has difficulty remembering things, his housekeeper Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney) and her son Roger (Milo Parker) are his only touch with the outside world.

He thinks that Mr. Watson reimagined his detective exploits into interesting books/stories. He’s hung up on his last case, what happened, and why he quit being a detective.

The film traces brief memories of what happened and when we do the film transports us back to that time. McKellen plays both parts and it almost works. Him being the doddering forgetful old man and the younger Sherlock who is logical and only thinking about and using the facts to deduce his actions. When he realizes the times in his life he could have been more compassionate, the film softens and lands beautifully.

McKellen was great as a 93 year old man whose faculties are failing him. His covering up his forgetfulness (looking at his sleeve for the boy’s name) juxtaposed with the times he’s feeling full of himself (swimming with Roger) was really good. Linney did great in a very restrained role where she eventually embraces her lot as Holmes rewards her loyalty. Parker was very strong as the curious, inventive, thoughtful, and independent boy and friend of Holmes. He was the best part of the film. Mitch Cullin and Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a up and down script, which at times was too doddering. Bill Condon did a great job of sharing the beautiful English countryside and some of the interior shots were very effective. The story was too slow to start which I think he could have made different.

Overall:  A strong good film, but not in the upper echelon.