Third Person

First Hit:  Three intellectually and emotionally charged stories that become one in the end.

Liam Neeson plays Michael a successful Pulitzer Prize writer in Paris trying to write another book.

Flash - we’re in another story where we have Scott (Adrien Brody) making a deal to purchase stolen clothing designs – he’s a thief. Julia (Mila Kunis) is a young woman charged with intentionally harming her child. Although it wasn’t proven in court she cannot see her child.

Each story starts and is grown from here. In Michaels’ case he has a wife Elaine (Kim Basinger) who calls him from their home in the US and is worried about his welfare. There is pain in their voices when they speak. He also has a lover – Anna (Olivia Wilde) who is both loving and heartlessly mean. Scott hates being in Italy, goes to an “American” bar expecting something like home and doesn’t find it.

He meets Monika (Moran Atlas) at the bar and ends up getting mixed up with her trying to get back her daughter from some street thugs. Then there is Julia’s story of trying to see her son who is living with a famous artist Rick (James Franco) and his live-in lover Sam (Loan Chabanol). She is being defended by Theresa (Maria Bello) who really tries to help Julia see her son but Julia keeps getting in her own way.

As each story evolves the screenwriter slowly brings them together as a singularity. The film is long and at times, I wondered when it would end - and I also was staying engaged.

Neeson’s story is the focal point of the entire film as it begins and ends with him. My perception is that his character creates feelings about things for himself, through the creation of characters in the stories he writes about. His performance was strong. Kunis was amazing as a young woman who tries hard to do the right thing but gets in her own way almost all the time. Brody was divine, in the way he worked through the trials of his life. Wilde was very strong as a heartless woman who wanted to really be loved and cared about while learning to trust. Chabanol was very good and her scene with Kunis in the women’s restroom was very good. Franco was OK as the distant creative artist. Atlas was sublime as the Roma woman trying to get her child back. Her movement between hard and openly soft was amazing. Bello as Kunis’ attorney was very good and her franticness were perfect for the part. Basinger was very good as Neeson’s wife who holds his struggles with equanimity. Paul Haggis wrote and directed this film. He likes complex stories which require the audience to work to understand as well as touching on sensitive subjects – he does this in this film as well. Overall, it boarded on overly complex and trite.

Overall:  I was touched by the acting in this film.

The Next Three Days

First Hit: Much better than I anticipated.

The trailers for this film didn’t seem very interesting nor am I a big Russell Crowe fan.

This film starts out oddly as John Brennan (Crowe) and his wife Lara (played by Elizabeth Banks) are out to dinner with friends. They are discussing working with a boss who one doesn’t respect. The next morning as they and their son Luke are having breakfast in the kitchen; the cops come to the door and burst in to arrest Lara. This moment in the film is unrealistic.

I just don’t think they would have burst in with that sort of aggressiveness. It takes a bit of time for the crime to be revealed in this film as it is more of a side note. With appeals long past John seeks out advice on how to break his wife out of prison.

Liam Neeson plays Damon Pennington a former prisoner who broke out of prison 7 times and with this experience plays a short but pivotal role in John’s path to break his wife out of jail. The next hour plus is about how he slowly finds the right people with the right information (including using YouTube clips) to help him make his plan. Here the film stays interesting.

The story doesn’t give too much away but does provide enough information to drive the audience into wondering what choice is John making and how is he constructing the plan. When the plan is executed, it takes some intense discussion for his wife to go along with the plan. In the end, she does and they successfully get to where they can spend their lives all together and in some relative peace.

As a twist, at the end of the film a detective tries to find the one clue that would have exonerated Lara, but he just misses, but the audience seeing the clue allows us to know Lara was innocent.

Crowe is effective at keeping his intensity under wraps and not overdoing it. Banks is very good as the mother who understands her son enough to let him find his way back to her emotionally. Neeson is wonderful in his short 5 minute scene. Paul Haggis, Fred Cavaye and Guillaume Lemans wrote a very strong script. Haggis did a really good job of directing this giving Pittsburgh the feel of being a long time blue collar town with an intelligent law enforcement team.

Overall: I was surprised at how much I liked it.

In the Valley of Elah

First Hit: A very well done film on a relevant topic with some very fine acting.

Vietnam War films started arriving years after the conflict ended.

Today the film industry; I think spurred on by the advent of digital media, is moving faster to put relevant topics in front of us now.

In this case the Iraq War is far from over and this film, based on a true story, shares a one downside of this war. We only meet the subject through pieced together video clips, some dialog about him and one scene when he calls home from Iraq.

His father played by Tommy Lee Jones is a veteran of the Army and war and does an amazing (Oscar consideration) performance of reigned in anger and sadness as he pursues the death of his second son.

As a former MP and investigator he prods the civilian police led by Charlize Theron into really learning what actually happened to his boy. Susan Sarandon plays the mother and wife and gives a picture perfect performance of a mother who has lost her only two sons to the Army life. You can feel life empty out of her.

Although the film uses the death of their son as the subject of the film, the real aim of this film is to introduce people to a side of the war they are not use to seeing. It is a side that I know existed in Vietnam and appears to have expanded in the Iraq war.

The abuses and tactics used are killing us in more than one way. Our media makes attempts to recount these stories, but what it isn’t fleshing out is the effect on our young soldiers.

This film helps us to understand what happens to them (us) when life becomes more expendable. Don’t for a minute believe that the confession you listen to at the end of the film is just a Hollywood script, it isn’t. How do I know? I saw people act this way in Vietnam.

Overall: Paul Haggis directed another excellent film sharing a view of life not always seen or understood.