12

2007 // Russia // Nikita Mikhalkov // May 3, 2009 // Theatrical Print

B - Director Nikita Mikhalkov has tackled a "re-imagining" of the archetypal Serious American Drama with verve, slashing up the most conspicuous aspects of Twelve Angry Men, particularly its claustrophobic narrative and staging under Sidney Lumet. While Mikhalkov's 12 is far too graceless to stand at the same podium as Reginald Rose's seminal legal fable, the new film is provocative in its use of expansive flashbacks and long, personal monologues from the jurors. Notably, 12 swaps Henry Fonda's rational, persuasive Juror No. 8 for an anxious second-guesser, whose own experiences prohibit a rash decision about the defendant's fate. One senses that Mikhalkov is both paying tribute to and riffing on Lumet's palatable moralizing, not to mention the American judicial system so routinely fetishized in fiction. While the film takes its facile swipes at apathy and racism, it also poses more probing questions about the limits of speculation, culpability, and civic obligation. For these reasons, 12 is a worthy Russian response film to an iconic work of American drama, despite its often clumsy gestures towards humanizing grit. Never mind his silly flourishes and narrative dead-ends; Mikhalkov deserves praise for reconfiguring a lionized story within a new milieu, adding curiosities and complexity.

Moscow, Belgium

2008 // Belgium // Christophe Van Rompaey // March 26, 2009 // Theatrical Print

C - Scruffily endearing and accented with a gratifying guilelessness, Christophe Van Rompaey's Moscow, Belgium is a working-schlub dramedy with a clear sense of its operating parameters. The tale of separated forty-something working mom Matty (Barbara Sarafian) and her fumbling affair with a twenty-something truck driver (Jurgen Delnaet) is played for mellow laughs and cringing melodrama. The film paints an emotionally detailed but tightly framed portrait of middle-aged confusion and longing, and that's about all it does. Hence the absence of any substantial thematic aims, counter-balanced somewhat by a studious regard for its characters. The peripheral roles are cartoonish, but the principals are plump enough to reveal fresh layers in each successive scene. With the exception of Sarafian, who uses her eyes, mouth, and even hair to delicate effect, the performances don't exactly dazzle, nor does the script. There's uncertainty in the story, and refreshingly so, but there is also triteness and contrivance. What makes Moscow, Belgium more pleasurable than slicker romantic fare is the loose structure of it conversations and its penchant for subdued observation elsewhere. These don't make the film a marvel or anything, but do render it more appealing than the genre's usual ephemera.

Breakfast with Scot

2008 // Canada // Laurie Lynd // March 18, 2009 // Theatrical Print

[Breakfast with Scot was screened as a part of QFest 2009.]

C - Given that the film plays as a conventional family comedy, the set-up of Laurie Lynd's Breakfast With Scot requires a convoluted flowchart: Eric and Sam, a straight-laced gay couple, take in Sam's brother's dead ex-girlfriend' son, Scot. Got it? It turns out that the titular eleven-year-old is swishier than his new guardians, which leads to tension vis-à-vis the nominally straight face Eric prefers to present to the world, to say nothing of the perils of raising a manifestly gay preteen. Mild and sweet and ultimately forgettable, the film is strongest when it keeps the focus on Noah Bernett's oddly charming performance as the uber-girly and somewhat oblivious Scot, and on the paralyzing complexity of Eric's reactions to responsibility. Unfortunately, the story is unfocused, pivoting between the Gay Story and Adoption Story flavors of melodrama with a distinct ungainliness, and frittering time away on peripheral characters and subplots for thin sitcom chuckles. Ultimately, the film sweeps away all conflicts with the tidiness of an after-school special, which does a disservice to its ostensible aim to humanize the struggles of gay parents and gay kids. Still, LGBT-friendly family comedies are a rare breed, and they don't come much more benign than this.

Beauty in Trouble

2006 // Czech Republic // Jan Hrebejk // February 11, 2009 // Theatrical Print

B - The sly success of Jan Hrebejk's blackly comic melodrama, Beauty in Trouble, lies in its gently provocative probing of human behavior within a soap opera framework drunk on guilty pleasures. Borrowing from the Robert Graves poem for its title and tragic seed, Herbejk's film discovers a refreshing stance towards its characters, particularly Marsela, a stubborn Czech redhead who promises a sunny, skanky eroticism. Beauty's heroine finds herself tugged and provoked by bullies, saviors, obligations, and lusts, but Hrebejk shrewdly avoids both finger-wagging and chilly distance. Instead, the film challenges assumptions about how weary, battered people reconcile their conflicting motivations, all while maintaining a tone of puzzled affection even for its ostensible villains. Allegorical readings abound, especially with respect to the Czech Republic's place in tomorrow's Europe. This thematic complexity complements Beauty's most memorable scenes, which are soaked in pure, giddy drama: an unbearably tense confrontation over cookies; a furious, regretful bout of coitus above a chop shop; and the slow, stupid realization that a sleeping figure is stone dead. Not even a soundtrack that notoriously passes around songs with John Carney's Once distracts from Beauty's lurid baubles and restless musings.

The Reader

2008 // USA - Germany // Stephen Daldry // February 6, 2009 // Theatrical Print

C - Stephen Daldry's studiously grave The Reader doesn't quite slip from dry, forgettable melodrama to outright obnoxiousness, but it flirts with the move. Never mind the film's thunderous pomposity at its own bravery, manifest in a weary shouldering of Very Serious Issues and a limitless supply of scenes featuring a nude Kate Winslet. The former can work in a film's favor (e.g. The Dark Knight) and the latter is merely the prestige picture version of stunt work. What sticks in the craw is the labored, clinched manner in which The Reader plods towards its revelations, which are neither shocking nor thematically stimulating. That said, the film is smoothly efficient at achieving its primary goal: provoking vigorous discussion of its story's moral peculiarities. Daldry's direction isn't the least bit artful, but it is disciplined and occasionally charming, which is odd in a work that is otherwise so mirthless. The treat at the heart of The Reader is not Winslet, whose performance is durable yet monolithic, but Ralph Fiennes. His nuance of countenance and voice command the gaze, enriching scenes that haven't earned their pathos and lending The Reader the lion's share of its dramatic heft.

Were the World Mine

2008 // USA // Tom Gustafson // February 3, 2009 // Theatrical Print

C - The most striking aspect of Tom Gustafson's determinedly affable queer high school musical, Were the World Mine, is the slick manner in which the director grafts his lightweight contemporary political message to the elemental bliss of his source material. That would be A Midsummer's Night Dream, for which the film has the dreamy reverence of an enthralled sophomore literature geek (appropriately enough), but also a scrappy grasp of its timeless themes. Thus, Gustafson is able to juggle an obligatory liberal scolding of intolerance alongside the play's more traditional facets: the giddy thrill of romance, the tragicomical nature of human relations, and a certain meta-textual impishness. Unfortunately, this nimbleness is nowhere else to be found in Were the World Mine. The amateurish acting aside, Gustafson just isn't that skillful of a director, and the clumsy editing, sound, and choreography in particular make for some frustrating and baffling stretches. One wonders what Julie Taymor might have done with the concept and a $30 million budget. Still, Gustafson's enthusiasm for the material and his cast shine through, and Tanner Cohen as the tale's Puck / Helena propels the film with his alluring looks and soaring voice.