George Clooney proves again in Michael Clayton that he's more than just a handsome face. Elsewhere, Bruce Springsteen returns to his glory days, and The Darjeeling Limited revels in the mystery of brotherhood.
Michael Clayton is a classic “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore” old-school Hollywood thriller. And it heads my below list of advisable fall film options, some still available in theaters, some worth a rental at home.
Michael Clayton (Warner Bros.)
How the heart longs for the serious, sophisticated, smart adult thriller, a film with complex characters and an untidy resolution that reflects the frustrating doubts of modern life. We’ve been lucky enough to have two this year: Zodiac and now Michael Clayton. Both have been compared to ‘70s counterparts, but writer Tony Gilroy’s directorial debut doesn’t have the fashionable defeatism that often factored into the earlier era’s output. But you certainly wouldn’t call Michael Clayton optimistic, either. Call it instead clear-eyed about its saunter through big-time legal firms and corporate cover-ups. The key is George Clooney, who by now is without a doubt one of the finest mainstream actors we have. His Clayton is beaten and humbled, but also noble and clever. (One of the strengths of Gilroy’s superb script is that we never quite know what brought down Clayton’s promising legal career but that we simply understand it from looking at Clooney’s face.) The performances around him are just as terrific: Who else but Tilda Swinton could make an ice queen so evil and yet so vulnerable? Who else but Sydney Pollack could play the Sydney Pollack role? Some of the machinations of the cover-up plot are too generic for such a smart, smart film, but what lingers isn’t the whodunit. It’s the sensibility, the performances, the sense that in a world of crumbling ethics, a small stand on principle is barely worth a happy ending, no matter how much we wish otherwise.
The Darjeeling Limited (Fox Searchlight)
These things are infinitesimal to the average set of eyes, but, honestly, I did detect a noticeable increase in genuine emotion in this latest offering from hermetically-sealed auteur Wes Anderson. Perhaps I’ve simply made peace with the fact that he’s never going to be a major filmmaker, but I found The Darjeeling Limited to be the first of his movies to feel mysterious and ambiguous, as if Anderson hadn’t spent every nanosecond storyboarding and instead wondered about the depths of his characters. Or maybe it was the change in location – India feels appropriately otherworldly and thus allows Anderson’s three privileged white brothers to seem dislocated from themselves and each other. India seems to have done something to Anderson as well – loosened him up a bit although, again, it’s an infinitesimal adjustment. I still wish he would direct someone else’s script to force him further out of his comfort zone, but at least he’s regained his ability to direct actors. And his music choices, while predictably impeccable, add to the reassuring signs of sincerity – nobody in the audience snickers when they hear the authentic Indian music on the track.
Eastern Promises (Focus Features)
David Cronenberg’s last film, the beloved History of Violence, smeared the purity of its pulp-fiction thriller narrative with a bunch of “ironic” commentary on America’s love-hate obsession with violence. I dug the thriller but got irked by the obvious, smug commentary. Eastern Promises is commentary-free and better-acted to boot. Where History of Violence was based on a graphic novel but tried to separate itself from its “undistinguished” source material, his new film, from an original screenplay by Steven Knight, pops with the sort of pungent characters and colorful urban milieu that are hallmarks of the form. The fight scene is as fun as you’ve heard but is hardly the lone highlight. Viggo Mortensen and Armin Mueller-Stahl are absolutely first-rate. My only complaint is that as impeccably crafted as the film is – what else would you expect from Cronenberg? – the B-movie pulpiness of its tough-mobsters-and-innocent-damsels tale keeps the work from being truly spectacular. Still, I’ll take honest pulp to pretentious pulp any day.
Ten Canoes (Palm Pictures)
Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) was a major sensation six years ago for two reasons: the strength of its storytelling and the novelty that the film presented an indigenous people rarely seen on screen. While I wasn’t bowled over by Atanarjuat, I appreciated the cinematography and the simple fact that the movie got made, but chalked up much of its acclaim to those who wanted to reward the attempt rather than the actual achievement. I feel at a similar place with Ten Canoes, which advertises itself as the first film shot entirely in Aboriginal language. Like Atanarjuat, the movie is the retelling of a mythic yarn, and like many a mythic yarn it has an elemental power but isn’t quite scintillating or entirely original. But, again like Atanarjuat, the thing looks gorgeous, especially in the black-and-white flashbacks where we see the ancient tale unwind in front of our eyes. So, in summary, another distinctive, worthwhile novelty.
The Lookout (Miramax)
Pity poor Scott Frank, who after years of being one of Hollywood’s most respected screenwriters (Out of Sight, Minority Report) finally gets to direct his first feature and winds up making a minor gem his studio doesn’t know how to advertise. Theoretically, The Lookout is a noir crime thriller, but just because Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s in it doesn’t mean it’s Brick. Rather, this is a smart character piece dealing in redemption that moves ever so slowly into the realm of thriller. (Part of its charm is that Gordon-Levitt’s character discovers he’s stumbled into a heist picture around the same time the audience does.) Smart as it is at turning its quirky characters into believable real people, I do wish The Lookout could fully escape the genre conventions that weigh it down on the way to its ending. But there are good performances throughout – with this and Match Point, Matthew Goode is starting to be one of those under-the-radar guys worth following now – and of Gordon-Levitt’s recent trilogy of serious roles, this is my favorite.
This Is England (IFC)
Conjuring an era in a subculture I can’t pretend to know firsthand, writer-director Shane Meadows takes us to England in the early ‘80s as the nation floundered in the shadow of the Falklands war and a punk scene whose lingering nastiness wouldn’t wash away. At heart, This Is England is a politically-minded coming-of-age story as an impressionable pre-teen boy (played without cuteness by Thomas Turgoose) discovers how easy it is to be taken in by bad influences when you don’t realize they’re bad influences. The skinheads Turgoose encounters are rendered with a calm, nonjudgmental tone – Meadows understands them and also shows how some were merely sensitive oddballs while others were twisted bastards. The country’s burgeoning resentment toward “outsiders” has a strong parallel to our own uncertainty about “illegals,” and the film has an added cautionary spin to it because of that fact. But as nicely drawn as it all is, This Is England ultimately feels like a much better version of the sappy narratives where a young person learns about life, sex, and family through difficult days. Certainly affecting, but modest.
Private Fears in Public Places (IFC)
Robert Altman was almost 70 when he directed Short Cuts, a film I still consider his best, a kaleidoscopic look at a group of Los Angeles residents dealing with their unresolved love lives and personal hang-ups. What made it shine is the old master’s effortless touch, the way the characters he follows exist in a perfectly natural environment that tells us everything about who we are without trying to say a thing. Alain Resnais’ adaptation of Alan Ayckbourn’s play isn’t as powerful, but it’s worth noting that Resnais is now into his 80s. As with Short Cuts, Private Fears in Public Places consists of a collection of occasionally overlapping storylines which aren’t always resolved or fully explained. But these Frenchmen and women equally float through the miasma of everyday troubles, even when the occasional sex tape or perfect blind date get in the way of the normalcy. Resnais doesn’t try for any big effects, so the film feels deceptively minor. But while its plotting and characters don’t offer many revelations, the individual moments reverberate.
Bruce Springsteen, Magic (Sony)
The strongest Springsteen album in over a decade – the most cleanly and clearly accessible and the one that requires the least backpedaling and defensive justifications to enjoy – is part retrenchment, part nostalgia, part rejuvenated songwriting. But it’s also his toughest in forever – not thematically, where he remains dicey with his lyrics sometimes fumbling for catch phrases and rock mythos that he’s too much of a rich square to fully embody. No, I’m talking about the thunder of the drums and the strength of the hooks and the tough, tight force of the whole band. Back in the early days, the mystique of his romantic-everyman persona wouldn’t have mattered as much without the sheer power of the music, a fading commodity as he’s approached middle age. But after The Rising’s soggy good intentions and soupy atmospherics, Magic comes on confident, loud, and urgent. If “Radio Nowhere” is typical guff from a graying rock star who can’t crack the Hot 100 anymore, at least it rocks plenty. He’s still too much of a he-man when it comes to his love songs – surely Patti can’t find this stuff romantic, can she? But when he’s not simplifying the Iraq war or eulogizing a gypsy biker with overproduced theatrics, Magic is largely boom boom boom boom – good tune, good tune, good tune, good tune. Who knew the savior of rock ‘n’ roll had it in ‘im?
M.I.A., Kala (Interscope/XL)
Arular led with its instantly-captivating music – if you noticed the political lyrics or not, what difference did it make? Music comes first again here, but the politics are folded into the texture of these slowly-emerging, eventually-captivating tunes. Straight white liberals fear describing such music as Third World or “exotic” because it’s code for “that weird stuff that doesn’t sound like the Shins or Prince,” but the Indian-via-Africa vibe and percussive impact are genuinely alien regardless. And it moves beyond the merely exotic because the “weird” instruments and samples aren’t just decoration – they make up the rhythm tracks, they instill a sense of dislocation that’s intimidating but also bracing. What you encounter isn’t simple dance music or hip-hop – it’s the sound of multiculturalism coming right at you, consuming a world’s worth of tunes and condensing it into 12 tracks. Without a “Galang” on it as an easy entry point, try “Bamboo Banga” or the album-closing “Come Around,” where Timbaland tries to turn her into Nelly Furtado, and she politely declines the offer.
Consumables is a biweekly overview of popular culture.
