(Phillip Noyce, 2014)
The Giver has lots of big ideas. Based upon Lois Lowry's seminal novel, it tries to spin that story in a post Hunger Games world with mixed results. Beginning in a future-world literally devoid of colour, it borrows a trick from Gary Ross' superior Pleasantville by having colour slowly bleed into the film scene by scene as Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) learns about beauty, emotion, violence and love.
Jonas has been chosen as the Receiver, the only one in this perfect future community who is fit to take on any knowledge of the past. As such he has daily sessions with the Giver (Jeff Bridges) who somehow psychically exposes him to memories, images and sensations of the past world, most of which play out as random streams of over-slick advertising imagery.
As for the rest of his black and white world, here people take a daily injection to kill emotion, are constantly polite and apologetic, and have no knowledge of art, music or love. Jonas' parents insist he use 'precision of language" while his father (Alexander Sarsgârd) is a sort of midwife-paediatrician who is also responsible for killing the babies deemed unfit for life in the community (releasing them to elsewhere is the euphemism preferred). A Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) watches carefully that nobody disturbs their fragile equilibrium, but of course Jonas begins to, falling in love with his friend, curious about the possibility of universal memory and whatever lies beyond the border.
The big themes touched on here remain just that - touched on. The Giver never explores them, never speculates what the world might really be like if people lived a life beneath them.
Noyce's direction is elegant and somewhat anonymous, as are many of the performances. This is a film of half-measures.
Showing posts with label teen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teen. Show all posts
Tuesday, 14 July 2015
Saturday, 28 December 2013
THE SPECTACULAR NOW
(James Ponsoldt, 2013)
Set within the usual movie-world of a High School in smalltown USA, complete with keg parties, proms, graduation and caring teachers, what really separates The Spectacular Now from most other teen movies is the acuity of its focus.
That focus is all on Sutter Keely (Miles Teller), a loquacious, charmingly hedonistic senior who has just been dumped by his girlfriend, the smart, pretty Cassidy (Brie Larson) and finds himself approaching the first real turning point in his life. High School is ending, and Sutter, who is popular and seems genuinely happy with his life there, doesn't know what to do with himself. He is surprisingly drawn to the pretty, shy Aimee (Shailene Woodley) and they begin a tentative romance. But Sutter's own nature presents a problem to most everything in his life, and a long-awaited meeting with his absent, deadbeat father (Kyle Chandler) further complicates things.
Much here rests on Teller's performance, and he is exceptional, creating a character who is evidently charismatic but always sympathetic, despite the frequent idiocy of his behaviour. He matches the film - Ponsoldt has created a world which, while portraying an environment familiar from many teen movies, feels more authentic than most, both emotionally and dramatically. Teller is soulful and warm, like the movie, and Woodley is his equal, making Aimee a complicated girl, clever but bewitched by this charming youth and his sudden interest in her.
There are many lovely moments here - Sutter's intense, complex relationship with Cassidy, who knows she has to move on to allow her adult life to begin, but just can't let go, is always nicely observed and played, and Kyle Chandler and Jennifer Jason Leigh get one great scene each. The moments where Sutter and Aimee connect and grow closer always feel true and touching, and Ponsoldt is good on atmosphere and feel; this is a movie that feels as if its set in the real world, which is still rare in this genre. It always looks good - casually lush photography which never shies away from the spots and blemishes on the faces of its lead characters - but what is most notable is the emotional effect. Sutter's journey initially feels minor, even trifling, but it gathers weight and is moving by the last scene.
Set within the usual movie-world of a High School in smalltown USA, complete with keg parties, proms, graduation and caring teachers, what really separates The Spectacular Now from most other teen movies is the acuity of its focus.
That focus is all on Sutter Keely (Miles Teller), a loquacious, charmingly hedonistic senior who has just been dumped by his girlfriend, the smart, pretty Cassidy (Brie Larson) and finds himself approaching the first real turning point in his life. High School is ending, and Sutter, who is popular and seems genuinely happy with his life there, doesn't know what to do with himself. He is surprisingly drawn to the pretty, shy Aimee (Shailene Woodley) and they begin a tentative romance. But Sutter's own nature presents a problem to most everything in his life, and a long-awaited meeting with his absent, deadbeat father (Kyle Chandler) further complicates things.
Much here rests on Teller's performance, and he is exceptional, creating a character who is evidently charismatic but always sympathetic, despite the frequent idiocy of his behaviour. He matches the film - Ponsoldt has created a world which, while portraying an environment familiar from many teen movies, feels more authentic than most, both emotionally and dramatically. Teller is soulful and warm, like the movie, and Woodley is his equal, making Aimee a complicated girl, clever but bewitched by this charming youth and his sudden interest in her.
There are many lovely moments here - Sutter's intense, complex relationship with Cassidy, who knows she has to move on to allow her adult life to begin, but just can't let go, is always nicely observed and played, and Kyle Chandler and Jennifer Jason Leigh get one great scene each. The moments where Sutter and Aimee connect and grow closer always feel true and touching, and Ponsoldt is good on atmosphere and feel; this is a movie that feels as if its set in the real world, which is still rare in this genre. It always looks good - casually lush photography which never shies away from the spots and blemishes on the faces of its lead characters - but what is most notable is the emotional effect. Sutter's journey initially feels minor, even trifling, but it gathers weight and is moving by the last scene.
Friday, 11 January 2013
WHAT RICHARD DID
(Leonard Abrahamson, 2012)
What Richard Did establishes its world effortlessly in its first scene. Three teenagers drive through the more affluent suburbs of Dublin's Southside - the streets are wide and tree-lined, the houses big Georgian red-bricks - and cockily, affectionately chat teenaged rubbish at one another. They stop at a supermarket to stock up for a party and on the way out they mock the working class accents of the women working on the tills, the first sign that their privileged lifestyles might have some negative effects on their attitudes and personalities. Then we get to know them better. The leader is Richard (Jack Reynor), who is every smug alpha male rugby-boy I met in University in Dublin rolled into one, only more so. Because Richard is perfect; good-looking, popular, protective of younger acquaintances, friendly and funny, the Captain of the rugby team, great to his parents ("My beautiful boy" his Dad (Lars Mikkelsen, who has one genuinely devastating scene) casually calls him), effortlessly charming and at ease in every conceivable situation, he moves like a King through his social group, making introductions and resolving disputes. He wears his entitlement lightly, with absolute confidence and self-assurance
We see him fall in love with Lara (Róisín Murphy), girlfriend of teammate Conor (Sam Keeley), and the fallout from all this leads to a violent confrontation at a house party one night , where somebody dies. The rest of the film sticks closely to Richard as he deals with guilt and fear and denial and his world and all its comfortable certainties basically evaporates around him.
Abrahamson has shown his sensitivity and subtlety in his previous films but here he reaches a new level; What Richard Did is beautifully concise and understated throughout. The teenaged relationships showcase the usual bawdy humour and amiable camaraderie but there is also a healthy dose of ennui here, young people whiling away hours with not much they really need to do.
And so they drink and sleep together and obsess over their relationships, and in its depiction of their rituals and social habits, the film absolutely nails a specific set of bourgeois youth from the Dublin 4 postcode (Richard makes a joke about "D4 teenagers binge-drinking" at one point).
There is great subtlety here, too, in the fact that Conor has a bit more of the country about him (his parents have thick rural accents) than his upper middle-class teammates, and celebrates his birthday in a GAA club, establishing him as something of an outsider from the off. And truth, in the many wordless scenes between the young lovers, sitting and lying together before jealousy and a hint of irritated boredom inevitably enter the picture.
Abrahamson is a minimalist, his style never overbearing, shots that opt for ostentatious beauty notably rare. The film is mostly shot in a flat, realist, almost Scandinavian light, and the main arthouse cliche it fulfils is its alternately twinkly and ominous score. It is engrossing throughout and provocatively haunting; its ambiguous ending has stayed with me to a surprising extent.
The performances are fantastic; Reynor is a magnetic centre, his face filling the screen for a good portion of the running time, and we can read every thought and feeling there. The largely teenaged cast of friends and acquaintances acquit themselves just as well.
On top of all this, it works nicely as an allegory of the moral decay apparent in Ireland during and after the boom; a country unsure of what to do with its prosperity and ultimately choosing to turn a blind eye to its more unsavoury aspects. But this theme, while never subtle, can be disregarded if one chooses to do so. What Richard Did works equally well with or without it.
What Richard Did establishes its world effortlessly in its first scene. Three teenagers drive through the more affluent suburbs of Dublin's Southside - the streets are wide and tree-lined, the houses big Georgian red-bricks - and cockily, affectionately chat teenaged rubbish at one another. They stop at a supermarket to stock up for a party and on the way out they mock the working class accents of the women working on the tills, the first sign that their privileged lifestyles might have some negative effects on their attitudes and personalities. Then we get to know them better. The leader is Richard (Jack Reynor), who is every smug alpha male rugby-boy I met in University in Dublin rolled into one, only more so. Because Richard is perfect; good-looking, popular, protective of younger acquaintances, friendly and funny, the Captain of the rugby team, great to his parents ("My beautiful boy" his Dad (Lars Mikkelsen, who has one genuinely devastating scene) casually calls him), effortlessly charming and at ease in every conceivable situation, he moves like a King through his social group, making introductions and resolving disputes. He wears his entitlement lightly, with absolute confidence and self-assurance
We see him fall in love with Lara (Róisín Murphy), girlfriend of teammate Conor (Sam Keeley), and the fallout from all this leads to a violent confrontation at a house party one night , where somebody dies. The rest of the film sticks closely to Richard as he deals with guilt and fear and denial and his world and all its comfortable certainties basically evaporates around him.
Abrahamson has shown his sensitivity and subtlety in his previous films but here he reaches a new level; What Richard Did is beautifully concise and understated throughout. The teenaged relationships showcase the usual bawdy humour and amiable camaraderie but there is also a healthy dose of ennui here, young people whiling away hours with not much they really need to do.
And so they drink and sleep together and obsess over their relationships, and in its depiction of their rituals and social habits, the film absolutely nails a specific set of bourgeois youth from the Dublin 4 postcode (Richard makes a joke about "D4 teenagers binge-drinking" at one point).
There is great subtlety here, too, in the fact that Conor has a bit more of the country about him (his parents have thick rural accents) than his upper middle-class teammates, and celebrates his birthday in a GAA club, establishing him as something of an outsider from the off. And truth, in the many wordless scenes between the young lovers, sitting and lying together before jealousy and a hint of irritated boredom inevitably enter the picture.
Abrahamson is a minimalist, his style never overbearing, shots that opt for ostentatious beauty notably rare. The film is mostly shot in a flat, realist, almost Scandinavian light, and the main arthouse cliche it fulfils is its alternately twinkly and ominous score. It is engrossing throughout and provocatively haunting; its ambiguous ending has stayed with me to a surprising extent.
The performances are fantastic; Reynor is a magnetic centre, his face filling the screen for a good portion of the running time, and we can read every thought and feeling there. The largely teenaged cast of friends and acquaintances acquit themselves just as well.
On top of all this, it works nicely as an allegory of the moral decay apparent in Ireland during and after the boom; a country unsure of what to do with its prosperity and ultimately choosing to turn a blind eye to its more unsavoury aspects. But this theme, while never subtle, can be disregarded if one chooses to do so. What Richard Did works equally well with or without it.
Sunday, 9 September 2012
THREE O'CLOCK HIGH
(Phil Joanou, 1987)
Aping the "one day" approach which had proven so successful twice over in the hands of John Hughes (on Ferris Buellers Day Off and The Breakfast Club), Phil Joanou's debut feature Three O'Clock High adds a twist of the premise from a classic Western. The title acknowledges as much without suggesting quite how strange a mix of tones and influences this film is.
Jerry Mitchell (Casey Siemaszko) is a somewhat anonymous, nice guy High School student who manages to offend the legendarily tough new boy at school, Buddy Revell (Richard Tyson). Revell announces that he and Jerry will fight at 3:00, after school, in the parking lot. From then on, an increasingly desperate Jerry struggles to prevent the fight, trying to buy protection, get himself put in detention, flee the school, and have Buddy expelled, all in vain. Amidst all of this, his new age friend Anne (Franny Perrins) wants them to "connect", the police are investigating the theft of the float (by Jerry) from the school shop, his best friend Vincent (Jonathan Wise) makes things worse when he tries to help, various school authorities loom, and the beautiful Karen (Liza Morrow) seems to have taken a newfound interest in him.
There is much here familiar from many other '80s teen movies; the high school itself is so generic it functions almost as THE American High School, densely populated by mainly White kids from a broadly middle class background, thronging in its palatial stairwells, locker-lined corridors, and its football field. These kids are often given peculiarly eccentric characterisation, their quirks and tics as fully-developed and assured as those of any adult, from Buddy's psychotic blankness to Jonathan's 1940s newsman schtick.
Then there are the nicely-drawn parallels between the school and a prison, underlined here by the sinister authority figures Jerry encounters (Joanou emphasises all this with an overuse of low angle shots) and a few plot developments: intimidation in the toilets, hushed blood money payments to tough guys in the yard.
For all that, it's oddly unfunny, Joanou proving far more comfortable with drama than he is with comedy. His approach to the comic material is scattershot; there is slapstick here, a little satire, some comedy of embarrassment. But hanging over it all is the big clock of the plot and it's countdown to Jerry's showdown with Buddy.
Siemaszko is fine throughout and Joanou and Tyson succeed in making Buddy quite terrifying, immovable in his stubborn desire for combat, his use of violence shot for impact, emphasising his brutality and lethal forcefulness. That showdown, when it comes, is heightened to an almost operatic level, and terrifically satisfying.
Joanou favours a few too many showy angles and ostentatious directed moments, but he's a solid storyteller too, and the Tangerine Dream score works better than one might imagine in such material.
Overall, its an unusual, distinctive take on the teen movie, and one that just about works, a few minor flaws aside. It suggested that Joanou had massive potential as a director, potential that he never really fulfilled.
Saturday, 5 May 2012
THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER
(David Robert Mitchell, 2010)
I don't recognise much of my own teens in the majority of teen movies. I doubt many people do. The American teen genre, filled with glamorous, massive house parties and boldly archetypal characters (jock, nerd, prom queen etc) in an affluently suburban landscape, is far removed from my own experience, though it did twist my own expectations as a teen.
David Robert Mitchell's lovely indie is a far more recognisable proposition. Following a large cast of teens in a middle class Detroit suburb as they circle each other over the course of the last night of summer before they return to High School or leave for College, it is filled with authentic details that can only have come from memory.
There are four storylines running alongside one another and occasionally intersecting. Two of them focus on moony young men, one a romantic teen searching Gatsby-style for the beautiful blonde he saw in a supermarket, the other in town for summer and contemplating not returning to College for his final year after a traumatic breakup, also looking for a former crush.
Then there are the girls; a young cheerleader hoping for one last night of romance and excitement and a recent arrival in town who tries to steal another girls boyfriend after reading something about her own boyfriends past in the girls diary.
They are surrounded by a rich cast of friends, classmates and siblings, and the film is filled with secret crushes, casual telling conversations and loaded glances. Most of the cast are not professionals, and disregarding a couple of instances of wooden stiltedness, they give the film an appealingly unguarded energy and authenticity most teen movies never approach.
It is set at the precise moment in the teens when the last vestiges of childhood begin to dissolve and nostalgia for former innocence creeps into ones view of oneself. Mitchell's gaze is warm, humanist, and these characters are generally nice, articulate and thoughtful people.
Their conversations are full of empathy and insight, and they all seem in search of romance. The film is soulful rather than loquacious, attuned to the moment yet appreciative of the power of memory, and Mitchell's attention to texture and detail gives it all a sensual charge.
Here are teenage boys trying to project an image of jaded experience while longing for romance and the right moment with a pretty girl, and Mitchell's portrait of this one warm night, in all it's vital detail and many textures, gives it a very recognisable sense of nostalgia and longing which is quite moving.
Another factor in its universality is a certain timeless quality it possesses; the clothes and hairstyles suggest the present day, but there are no cultural references to date it, and no cellphones used at all, suggesting the 80s or 90s.
It may recall similar masterpieces of small-town teenage life and love Dazed & Confused and American Grafitti, but this film has it's own unique feel, quietly romantic and poetic, naturalistic and loose. It is beautifully shot and cut, and nicely uses some indie music by Beirut and The Magnetic Fields. But it is chiefly a fine, compulsive piece of storytelling with a nagging emotional charge from an interesting young American writer-director.
I don't recognise much of my own teens in the majority of teen movies. I doubt many people do. The American teen genre, filled with glamorous, massive house parties and boldly archetypal characters (jock, nerd, prom queen etc) in an affluently suburban landscape, is far removed from my own experience, though it did twist my own expectations as a teen.
David Robert Mitchell's lovely indie is a far more recognisable proposition. Following a large cast of teens in a middle class Detroit suburb as they circle each other over the course of the last night of summer before they return to High School or leave for College, it is filled with authentic details that can only have come from memory.
There are four storylines running alongside one another and occasionally intersecting. Two of them focus on moony young men, one a romantic teen searching Gatsby-style for the beautiful blonde he saw in a supermarket, the other in town for summer and contemplating not returning to College for his final year after a traumatic breakup, also looking for a former crush.
Then there are the girls; a young cheerleader hoping for one last night of romance and excitement and a recent arrival in town who tries to steal another girls boyfriend after reading something about her own boyfriends past in the girls diary.
They are surrounded by a rich cast of friends, classmates and siblings, and the film is filled with secret crushes, casual telling conversations and loaded glances. Most of the cast are not professionals, and disregarding a couple of instances of wooden stiltedness, they give the film an appealingly unguarded energy and authenticity most teen movies never approach.
It is set at the precise moment in the teens when the last vestiges of childhood begin to dissolve and nostalgia for former innocence creeps into ones view of oneself. Mitchell's gaze is warm, humanist, and these characters are generally nice, articulate and thoughtful people.
Their conversations are full of empathy and insight, and they all seem in search of romance. The film is soulful rather than loquacious, attuned to the moment yet appreciative of the power of memory, and Mitchell's attention to texture and detail gives it all a sensual charge.
Here are teenage boys trying to project an image of jaded experience while longing for romance and the right moment with a pretty girl, and Mitchell's portrait of this one warm night, in all it's vital detail and many textures, gives it a very recognisable sense of nostalgia and longing which is quite moving.
Another factor in its universality is a certain timeless quality it possesses; the clothes and hairstyles suggest the present day, but there are no cultural references to date it, and no cellphones used at all, suggesting the 80s or 90s.
It may recall similar masterpieces of small-town teenage life and love Dazed & Confused and American Grafitti, but this film has it's own unique feel, quietly romantic and poetic, naturalistic and loose. It is beautifully shot and cut, and nicely uses some indie music by Beirut and The Magnetic Fields. But it is chiefly a fine, compulsive piece of storytelling with a nagging emotional charge from an interesting young American writer-director.
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