Laggies

First Hit:  Turned out to be a really good film because of excellent acting.

Although I really disliked the title, the film worked. Laggies refers to young adults that are lost and lagging behind their peers in developmental and societal growth.

Here we have Megan (Keira Knightley) who has been living with her boyfriend Anthony (Mark Weber). He wants to marry Megan and begin to follow the path their friends are taking, marriage then children. These long term  friends ("the group") are from high school and they continue to support each other and do everything together.

The setup is that Megan does things with her friends which are viewed as immature, and as she begins to see she is out of step with her group, she begins to wonder what to do with her life and what it means. Although Megan obtained her MFC degree, she found the work unrewarding. The pressure to act like a grown-up, get a job and contribute to society, is growing but she feels like she is floating. Enabling her situation is her father Ed (Jeff Garlin) because he  lets her work for him spinning a directional arrow sign on a sidewalk guiding people to is tax service office.

When Anthony asks her for her hand in marriage, she freaks and splits for a week to “get her head together”. She meets a high school kid Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) and her friends who take a liking to this older, yet like them, woman. Annika sneaks her home and when her father Craig (Sam Rockwell) finds her in Annika’s room he decides to question her as to why. Throughout this week little lessons begin to appear to Megan and in the end, she finds a way to make steps towards taking charge of her life.

Knightly is absolutely fantastic. She perfectly embodies a young lost woman and then shifts to become a more responsible woman, yet keeping her young enthusiasm in tact. Weber is good as Megan’s fiancé. Garlin is strong as the enabling father. Moretz is sublime. Her intelligent innocence shines through with wisdom and grace. Rockwell is perfect as Moretz’s father. Andrea Seigel wrote a wonderful insightful screenplay. Director Lynn Shelton did an excellent job of letting this story unfold with good acting.

Overall:  I really enjoyed how this film unfolded although I disliked the title.

Begin Again

First Hit:  Thoroughly enjoyed Keira Knightly’s role and character – she made this film work.

There are a number of scenes in this film in which Knightley shines, one is when she sings the first song in the alley way. Another is when she connects with Dan’s (Mark Ruffalo) daughter Violet (Hailee Steinfeld). There is an infectiousness light that exudes from her.

Basically, Gretta (Knightly) is in New York to support her singer boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine). She is also a songwriter and has penned and partially penned some of Dave’s hits. He gets caught up in being famous and cheats on Gretta. Dan, who is a down on his luck alcoholic record producer walks into a bar and hears her sing a song.

What I loved about this scene, and others in the film, is that the audience gets different views of the same scene, which show a different perspective – wonderful direction. Dan hears her song fully produced and even through his drunk state, you get this is a great song. Their relationship helps them both grow as people and in their professions. Another wonderful relationship in the film is Gretta’s with her old friend from London - Steve (James Cordon). He’s in New York trying to make a living with music and the way he openly reaches out to Gretta is beautiful.

I felt the direction; especially the use of seeing the same scenes from a different point of view was excellent. This technique wasn’t over used and added to the “setup” of the characters.

Knightly shines in this role and her singing was delicately very good. Ruffalo was good, and as the film progressed his engagement with making the music was really strong and I grew to care about his character – which was the point. Steinfeld in her limited role was very good. Cordon was very good in his supporting role. Levine was OK as the character and better when he sang. Mos Def as Ruffalo’s business partner was a great casting because he embodied the role he knows so well – producer. Ceelo Green as a friend of Dan’s was also a great casting because he brought an amusing yet sound viability of Dan’s role in the film. John Carney wrote and directed this film and some of his scenes were really wonderfully shot.

Overall:  This was a really nice film to watch.

A Dangerous Method

First Hit:  I liked the concept but this was a very uneven film.

Sabrina Spielrein (played by Keira Knightley) was a disturbed patient of Carl Jung (played by Michael Fassbender) and ended up being a psychologist and lover of Jung.

She was one of the first to be treated by Jung using the talking method (psychoanalysis). Unfortunately, Knightley’s rendition of Spielrein seemed totally out of place, overly acted, and poorly executed. From the jutting chin, distorted hand positions and the occasional half hearted attempt at a Russian accent, her part was mostly unwatchable.

For this I fault both director David Cronenberg and Knightley. The interaction between Freud (played by Viggo Mortensen) and Jung was somewhat better and as one who studied a lot of psychology and did work in this field I would have like a deeper engagement of each of their theories and the differences between them.

However this film floated along like a rudderless boat. In the end I didn’t care about any of the characters nor did I think I learned much.

Knightley was mostly horrible. This is the worst role I’ve ever seen her in and wonder why she was directed this way. Fassbender was very controlled and reserved as I suppose the character was required to be, yet it took away from the depth of who he was playing. Mortensen was better at Freud than the others were in their characters. There was an arrogant solidness of his thought process that was palatable and interesting. However I would have like to have known more. Christopher Hampton and John Kerr wrote a lifeless script. Cronenberg did not do his best work here and it showed.

Overall: For such a rich subject, to have this fall this flat was really very sad.

Never Let Me Go

First Hit: Although well-acted, for the most part, it just didn’t seem believable.

From the get go I kept thinking, why didn’t someone take off their bracelet? Why didn’t someone leave the country? Where was the rebellion?

Despite the unbelievable story line, much of the acting was good and the cinematography was outstanding.

The story is basically that some children in rural England, who are said to be clones (although unproven in the film), are being raised in large homes to eventually give their internal organs up for donation. There is a sense of pride that the children, when they become old enough to donate, stay alive long enough to donate 3, 4 and even 5 times.

A smart, sensitive and big of heart young girl named Kathy (played by both Izzy Meikle-Small and Carey Mulligan) befriends a young boy (played by both Charlie Rowe and Andrew Garfield) who seems to have no athletic or art ability. Seeing Kathy befriending this young boy Kathy’s best friend Ruth (played by both Ella Purnell and Keira Knightley) decides to use her amorous nature to get the shy Tommy to be her boyfriend.

Kathy does not protest much against this move by her best friend and this is emblematic of the whole film. Why doesn’t anyone protest their life? Could the indoctrination of the school’s teachers be so oppressive that no one dares to protest? Even when the teacher Miss Lucy tells the kids that their life exists only to be the suppliers of body parts to other people, no one protests.

The only noticeable appearance that these children and young adults are being physically controlled is the metal bracelet which they wave over a box near a door entrance each time they walk in or out of their home recording their comings and goings.

Rowe and Purnell were very good as the young Tommy and Ruth respectively. However, Meikle-Small was outstanding as the young Kathy. She really shined. Mulligan as the older Kathy only makes the part work when she is playing a late 20 or early 30 year old person. Mulligan, as I’ve stated before, needs to play more chronologically correct roles for her actual age. Although she may look young, her eyes belie the age of the parts she is playing. She is too mature for them. Garfield does a good job of being Tommy, a boy and young man who is a little slow in the exterior but of beautiful heart. Knightley is OK as the mid-teen but becomes much better when she becomes the donor because there is a soulfulness she emotes which rings true for the part. Kazuo Ishiguro wrote the novel on which Alex Garfield based his adequate screenplay. I’ve not read the novel so I don’t know if the storyline problems are with the novel or adaptation. Adam Kimmel did an outstanding and superb job as cinematographer as the pictures of rural England are dead on perfect and created an outstanding reflection of the mood. Mark Romanek directed this and I wonder how it felt to film a storyline which had such a gaping hole in logic.

Overall: Outside of a hole in the storyline, the beauty of the pictures and some of the acting made this film watchable.

The Duchess

First Hit: Lusciously shot, well acted, this film powerfully points at how women were treated as less than equals of men in the past and also the strength and power of being a mother.

Keira Knightley plays Georgiana, The Duchess of Devonshire, elegantly and powerfully. Ralph Fiennes plays the Duke of Devonshire as disengaged from his feelings, powerfully respected because of his position, and driven to reproduce an heir as is required in an aristocracy.

The opening shot has the Duke negotiating with Georgiana’s mother to marry the beautiful beguiling 17 year old girl. Upon hearing of the arrangement Georgiana is excited and happy as it is quite an honor. But the wedding night proves how detached The Duke is. He simply wants an heir. Ralph gives small hints of his caring about his wife, but his actions are in line with his duty, produce a male heir.

In an early scene there is a telling statement about the difference between the sexes; The Duke wonders, out loud, about why woman wear such complicated clothing.

The Duchess responds with it is the only way they can express themselves. Women are limited in their societal roles. She continues by saying, men have lots of ways to express themselves but women are limited to what they wear and how they wear it.

This film, once again, shows that Keira Knightly is a wonderful young actress. She holds the screen and the story while showing a wide range of youth, strength, and sorrow through this performance. Ralph Fiennes is great as a deeply controlled, bound by duty, man who would like to break out just a little but knows he cannot. The direction by Saul Dibb kept the film close to the true story of this powerful popular woman who reminded me of Princess Diana.

Overall: I am not always a big fan of costume dramas, but this one is interesting and extremely well acted.