The Ides of March

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 19th February 2012

Fresh from goofing about in the tear-jerking The Defendants, George Clooney is back, this time directing, co-writing and starring in a political thriller that has you wound as tightly as its characters right until the end.

Clooney plays Democratic Governor Mike Morris, presidential hopeful in the primary stages of his race to the White House.  It’s a two-horse race, and interestingly we don’t see the other horse except in sound-bites on television – because this is Morris’s contest.  We see his campaign office, peopled by bright-eyed young interns, and watch two cynically experienced campaign managers (the typically excellent Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti) play everyone like the strategists they are.

Wisely, however, Clooney doesn’t make it all about his character.  For the centre-piece in this particular battle of chess is the young, smart and idealistic Stephen (Ryan Gosling), Morris’s brilliant communications manager.  Ethically clear-cut – he will only “do anything and say anything” for that which he believes in – Stephen is suddenly embroiled in a series of events that see him questioning his loyalty and priorities.

Clooney loves a political movie, having scored high with Good Night, and Good Luck his black and white, Oscar-nominated 1950s retelling of the McCarthy era.  This story leaps forward sixty years, into a contemporary American tale which has some resonances with politicians we’ve seen come and go in recent years.  But the story is almost arbitrarily “political” – Stephen’s choices, his treatment at the hands of merciless friends and colleagues, and his ensuing predicament could all have happened in any boardroom, TV studio or trading floor.

As with Clooney’s other thoughtful works, The Ides of March isn’t full of rousing action set-pieces, but burns slowly at first, establishing its characters’ motivations and then, one by one, tipping them upside down.  With uniformly superb performances (Evan Rachel Wood’s feisty young intern is a pleasant surprise), perhaps the greatest bittersweet pleasure is in watching Gosling’s Stephen lose his idealistic sheen as the conflict intensifies.  His subsequent trajectory from bishop, to pawn, to rook is gripping.

Coming in at a modest one hour forty, the sudden, seemingly premature ending leaves you wishing (for once) that we could follow Gosling’s journey even further into the depths of what must surely be Stephen’s own personal hell.  Meanwhile, Clooney asserts himself a serious contender for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar next week.

Drive

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 30th October 2011

The moment  Ryan Gosling, toothpick dangling from mouth, straps on his leather driving gloves and takes off to some mysterious destination, you sense this film is going to be one hell of a ride. The bright pink 1980s-style font in the title sequence and a Vangelis-inspired soundtrack are evidence that Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn knows how to inject more than a little panache into an otherwise derivative crime caper. The fact that Drive seems to derive from the very best of its genre simply makes the comparisons thrilling.

Think Michael Mann directing Tarantino’s True Romance, starring a young Nic Cage lookalike, photographed like Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. The bright lights of LA pimp out the perfect backdrop for Gosling’s unnamed antihero, who works as a Hollywood stuntman by day and a getaway-driver-for-hire by night. Frustratingly taciturn, we don’t learn anything about his private world, but his shiny white bomber jacket and nonchalant gait indicate the “Driver” can handle himself. Probably if you were there next to him in real life, Gosling’s steady gaze would come off as creepy – but on celluloid, he’s enthralling.

He becomes gently embroiled in the life of the single mum next door (an unusual, but largely successful, change of scene for Carey Mulligan), whose jailbird husband is played with typical intensity by the very fine Oscar Isaac (Sucker Punch, Body of Lies). Christina Hendricks dons a tracksuit and attitude, and there are great performances from the older thugs, notably Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston and movie legend Albert Brooks.

Adapted for the screen by the talented Hossein Amini, whose previous work includes excellent period pieces, Drive feels like a heady return to the best 90s’ crime movies, not afraid to discharge a shotgun, stomp on a head, or stick a fork in someone’s eye. It’s brutal, it’s gruesome and it’s a blast.

Crazy Stupid Love

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 21st August 2011

Having married his soulmate at age 17 and raised three children, Cal (Steve Carell) is an uncommunicative, New Balance-wearing shadow of the man he once thought he was.

When wife Emily (Julianne Moore) requests a divorce, “Cal the Cuckold” finds himself propping up a local bar until ladies’ man Jacob offers him some tips, bemoaning: “I don’t know if I should help you or euthanase you.” Ryan Gosling is something of a poster boy for love stories, from The Notebook to the recent, and far superior, Blue Valentine.

Despite his shallow womanising as Jacob, he really should run a course in Break-Up 101 for every sartorially-challenged male, with his impressive portfolio of chat-up lines and photo-shopped physique. But, of course, he too has an itch that can only be scratched by the elusive Hannah (Emma Stone).

The film unfolds into a love hexagram, with everyone who’s fancied, in turn fancying someone else. As a plot this could be tiresome, but thanks to engaging performances from the whole cast, it’s a happyish ride, with a few tender moments. Cameos from Kevin Bacon, Marisa Tomei and singer Josh Groban go for laughs, but the core relationships manage to be sexy, as well as cute.

Blue Valentine / Hall Pass

These reviews first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 6th March 2011

Blue Valentine

While both can be affecting, there is a big difference in quality between a clichéd interpretation of true love and one that is authentic.  In his film career, Ryan Gosling has given us both.  The undisputedly successful but arguably trite The Notebook is an example of the former and, with considerable kudos to the Academy Award nominee, Blue Valentine is a supreme illustration of the latter.

Playing a young married father opposite the equally talented (and Oscar-nominated) Michelle Williams, Gosling inhabits his character, all rambling, intense and chain-smoking, to the extent you find yourself completely riveted by this story of a couple whose six-year marriage has reached a turning point.  Williams plays harried mother and reluctant wife with honesty and a complete lack of vanity, never striving to come out “the good guy”, and thus giving us a painfully believable rendition of how real relationships can blossom – and then wilt.

This is clearly a passion project for director Derek Cianfrance who spent 11 years getting the film made, and his commitment to the story he wanted to tell since his parents’ divorce during childhood is evident in the film’s quality.  With a narrative that trips back and forth between the halcyon days of early blooming romance and the couple’s contemporary world of loss and disillusionment, the photography perfectly mirrors the tone – shooting the good old days in free, hand-held, super 16mm film, and the present on fixed-shot digital, full of suffocating close-ups.  While the feeling of dread is often palpable, this is not an out-and-out depressing film (compared perhaps with the similarly well-acted Revolutionary Road).  There are plenty of uplifting moments between father and daughter and Dean and Cindy’s courtship is as charming as any one could wish for, with his shop-front performance of “You Always Hurt the One you Love” one of the highlights.

The actors deserve their award nominations, and the respect garnered by films such as Half Nelson and Brokeback Mountain.  Oozing charisma in the very best, non-manipulative way, they have an on-screen chemistry that leaves you wondering if, regardless of the outcome of their fictional relationship, Gosling and Williams should be a couple in real life.

Hall Pass

And so, from the sublime to the frankly ridiculous.  If you prefer your roms with more com, laced with the obligatory scatological humour of all Farrelly Brothers movies, a smattering of B-grade stars and a pointless police chase, then Hall Pass may be more the date-night movie you’re looking for.

The wives in this film clearly haven’t seen Blue Valentine – because they think their marriages are in crisis, they issue their dopey, girl-ogling husbands (Owen Wilson and Saturday Night Live alumnus Jason Sudeikis) with a “week off marriage”.  The men’s initial reluctance rapidly turns into the enthusiasm which drives every “grass is always greener” fantasy and they embark on a 7-day excursion to make the most of their freedom.

In support, Extras’ Stephen Merchant (really just playing Extras’ Darren) provides some of the big laughs and there is a surprising turn from Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins as a rather odious, advice-giving bachelor.

For a fleeting moment it even seems as though the most of the female characters are being treated with respect, until an unfortunate incident in a hotel bathroom.  Despite coming from the same school as The Hangover, this is the dunce of the class.