Video review: "Flower"

Erica is 17 years old and a certifiable “wild child.” Played in “Flower” with verve and confidence by Zoey Deutsch, her M.O. is to party all the time and manipulate everyone she encounters. Her favorite scam is enticing older men into sexual encounters, having her friends film it and then blackmail them by threatening to release the video.

Director Max Winkler, who co-write the script with Alex McAuley and Matt Spicer, manages to present us with some great characters, but then isn’t sure what to do with them.

Kathryn Hahn plays Erica’s mom, a bawdy woman bitter about her own misspent youth. She’s now taken up with a nice guy, Bob (Tim Heidecker), who mortifies Erica on a daily basis with his hopeless normalcy. Even worse, as the story opens his 18-year-old son, Luke (Joey Morgan), is returning home after spending time in rehab.

Relishing the chance to have a torrid liaison with her stepbrother and shock everyone, Erica is miffed when Luke turns out to be a painfully shy, overweight lad who is completely resistant to her sexual overtures. Things start out rough between them, but eventually an unexpected friendship starts to blossom.

Arriving late in the game is Adam Scott as Will, an older man (to Erica) that she and her friends play around with lusting after when they encounter him at the bowling alley. It turns out Will and Luke have an unexpected shared past, one filled with pain and misery for the both of them, which will get explored with some grim developments.

The best reason to watch this movie is to enjoy Deutsch’s performance as a young woman who has many deplorable qualities, but is one some level admirable -- or, at least, enviable -- for the way she attacks life like an opponent that must be defeated.

“Flower” is an uneven but bracing portrait of an American original.

Bonus features aren’t extensive, being limited to a feature-length commentary track featuring Winkler and Deutch. I think the best commentaries include both members of the creative team and crew, so it’s nice to see director and star collaborating.

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Review: "Flower"

Zoey Deutsch gives a colorful, vibrant and ultimately wasted performance in "Flower," a movie that keeps steering into thematic dead ends.

She plays Erica, a 17-year-old wasting her life in a nonstop party with her closest buds (Maya Eshet and Dylan Gelula) doing the usual teen stuff -- roaming malls, taking selfies, imbibing chemicals they oughtn't to. Typical acting out, you might say, except they finance their exploits by enticing men into receiving oral sex from Erica, documenting it and then blackmailing them for dough.

Erica certainly doesn't lack gumption; as the story opens, they are executing their latest scam on no less than a deputy sheriff (Eric Edelstein) in his patrol vehicle. The man's abject humiliation as he hands over the cash from the ATM and begs them not to put the video online almost makes us feel genuinely sorry for him.

Almost.

Does luring their targets into scuzzy/criminal behavior absolve Erica and company from their own scuzzy/criminal behavior? That would be an interesting subject to explore, but unfortunately director Max Winkler and his co-screenwriters, Matt Spicer and Alex McAuley, always seem to turn away from the harder questions, preferring to focus on the vagaries of Erica's moods and outbursts.

Erica and her mom (Kathryn Hahn) think they have a good relationship -- one of those "we're just two semi-crazy girls trying to get by!" kinda things. But Erica is a taker, treating every interaction as a transaction in which she must come out ahead. She's upset because mom has taken up with a monstrously "uncool" guy, Bob (Tim Heidecker), moving into their physical and emotional space.

Her own dad is currently incarcerated for some kind of casino business, and we sense she's more her father's daughter than her mother's.

Things grow worse when Bob's 18-year-old son, Luke (Joey Morgan), is released after a year in rehab. Erica, who uses her sexuality as the coin of the realm, is hoping for a hot future stepbrother she can carry on a shocking affair with. But she's miffed when Luke turns out to be timid, socially paralyzed and, worst of all, fat.

Erica's idea of comforting Luke after a panic attack is to offer -- to insist, actually -- on giving him a blowjob. When he refuses, she insults him as being either gay or under-endowed. A real winner, this one.

Part of the film's failing is never providing us a wide enough opening into Erica's vulnerabilities, assuming she has any cracks at all.

Eventually, Erica and Luke warm up to each other a bit more, and Luke opens up about his harrowing journey. I don't want to give away too much, but suffice it to say that it involves Will (Adam Scott), the "old hot guy" -- he appears to be in this 30s -- who Erica and her friends have been crushing on while hanging out at the bowling alley where he plays in a league.

At least, we think they like him. In Erica's world, where nothing is taken at face value, you can never tell if something that falls out of her mouth is meant the way it seems. Often not even by Erica herself.

Things go from there. This movie is billed as a comedy/drama, but it's neither particularly funny or momentous. Even at a brisk 93 minutes, it often drags.

I enjoyed Deutsch's energy and Morgan's genuineness. I'd love to watch their two characters in almost any other story, to see how they'd fare.

It was also a bit interesting to see Scott, who's made his career playing earnest dweebs, get a meatier role. We're never quite certain about Will, whether he's really a disturbed individual or an unfairly maligned one. Erica vacillates between trying to entrap him and being authentically attracted to him.

The final act goes on a bit of a bender, which felt more like where the screenwriters wanted to take their story rather than where it organically would go. "Flower" is a story about a wild teen sexpot blowing past boundaries -- the sort of thing an all-male creative team dreams up and then doesn't know what to do with.

Video review: "Sleeping with Other People"

"Sleeping with Other People" never made it far past the festival circuit and a modest theatrical release, but it was probably the best romantic movie I saw this year. It's funny, smart, sexy and treats its main characters like knowable people rather than mice scuttling through the same tired old romcom maze.

Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis play a pair who lost their virginity to each other back in college, and reconnect as friends. Unlike the usual romantic movie tropes, in which the couple spend the entire film ignoring the fact that they're perfect for each other, Lainey and Jake openly acknowledge their lingering attraction.

But they undertake a conscious effort to break free from their inability to commit, using each other as foils and advisers for the journey. They make a pledge not to hook up to see if they're capable of love without sex, a notion that of course gets tested.

The dialogue from writer/director Leslye Headland ("Bachelorette") is whip-smart and surprisingly honest. The supporting cast is uniformly good, existing as believable people who go on living their lives whenever they're not hanging around the main characters.

This is the sort of movie that blends romantic, comedic and dramatic elements so deftly that we don't work to label it.

Alas, bonus features are non-existent, on both DVD and Blu-ray editions.

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Review: "Sleeping with Other People"

"Sleeping with Other People" is the most ambitious romantic comedy I've seen since "(500) Days of Summer." It probably doesn't even belong in that category, since it contains many notes of drama and pathos in addition to plenty of laughs and witty wooing. It's also fairly raunchy, without ever showing any real skin.

It stars Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis as a messed-up pair of lovers who run into each other about 10 or 15 years after losing their virginity to each other in college. Each was a late bloomer who finally decided sex was something to just have and get over with so it doesn't become a big thing. Neverthless, it became a big thing despite their one night stand, with neither able to commit despite a string of flings.

They resolve to have a platonic friendship, despite the attraction between them, basically as a test to see if they're capable of a loving relationship sans sex. This goes on for more than a year, with predictable results.

I say the end point of this story is unsurprising, but what's unconventional is how writer/director Leslye Headland ("Bachelorette") arrives at the destination.

We quickly know that Lainey (Brie) and Jake (Sudeikis) are meant for each other; usually these sorts of movies are an exercise in the audience waiting for the characters to catch up with them. But here the couple also senses this, talks about it between them, but decide to continue the experiment because they value the relationship that's grown more than they care about physical intimacy.

Take Jake, for instance. He's a variation of the wiseacre lothario, a guy we've seen in countless movies before. But here Sudeikis and the script endow the character with self-awareness and doubt. He presents to the world the image of a fearless ladies' man, but inside he knows he's mostly a coward who's afraid of women.

"If you want someone to fall for you, you gotta be you," Lainey advises.

"Yeah, I don't think I like me enough to introduce him to other people," Jake says, but we understand the loathing underneath the quip.

Lainey, for her part, has been pining for the same guy since college, secretly believing he would choose her despite the way he's always kept her on a shelf. Matthew, now a successful OB/GYN, is played by Adam Scott, who's cold and manipulative in a way we haven't seen from the self-effacing funnyman.

He's just one of a terrific supporting cast that fills in the gap around the main players. Amanda Peet plays Jake's new boss, whom he immediately puts into his crosshairs despite the professional barrier between them. (He threatens to quit, walking away from a contract that will make him a millionaire, in return for one date.)

Jason Mantzoukas shines as Jake's long-suffering best friend, who resents but secretly desires his hedonistic, attachment-free lifestyle. (An Ecstasy-fueled scene at his son's birthday party is one of the film's giddy high points.) Natasha Lyonne plays the counterpoint role of Lainey's wingwoman, offering sage advice and a prod when needed.

I don't like to make predictions about how a movie will do, but "Sleeping with Other People" feels like it will break out a number of careers. Headland crafts some of the cleverest lines and vivid characters I've seen in a while. Brie is charming and vulnerable, a woman who can both admire and, at times, pity.

Sudeikis, though, just steals the show. Headland sets him up with a juicy part and he cracks it out of the ballpark. It's a familiar archetype that he endows with all sorts of shadings and subtleties. Sudeikis is entertaining yet believable. Plus, he's funny as all get out, spewing one-liners at a near-constant pace.

This must-see take on modern love is tragic, wise and hilarious.

Film review: "The Overnight"

"The Overnight" is more an exercise in filmmaking than a fully realized feature, essentially a promising sketch stretched out to 79 minutes. But it's well-done and quite engaging, alternating between goofiness and thoughtfulness with barely any seams showing between the transitions.

It stars Adam Scott, who you probably know from TV's "Parks and Recreations," and Taylor Schilling, who you probably know from "Orange is the New Black," a streaming television show from Netflix. They play Alex and Emily, respectively, a married couple who have just moved to Los Angeles from somewhere cold and boring, and get invited over by another family they've just met for a playdate between their boys.

Alex is a stay-at-home dad and Emily the breadwinner; she's outgoing and he struggles to engage with his new environment. “Am I supposed to just ask other grown-up persons if they want to be friends?” he implores.

The other marrieds, Kurt (Jason Schwartzman) and Charlotte (Judith Godréche), are blend of every cliché about over-involved southern California types. They have lots of money but don't appear to work much; he paints and she acts, both itinerantly; they've got a New Age-y vibe and burn incense to get their kid to sleep.

But they seem amiable enough -- too amiable, actually.

After the boys are slumbering, the grownups break out the liquor and the weed, things get pretty loose, then things get a little weird. Then a lot weird. Sexual hang-ups get exposed, buried desires are unearthed, and we're all in for a bumpy night.

Writer/director Patrick Brice, in his second feature film, shows keen insight for the suffocating life of married people with small kids -- the daily squabbles about unimportant stuff, the growing resentments that get stuffed under the furniture for the sake of familial bliss, or at least the appearance of it.

(In one naughty true-to-life bit, the opening scene has Emily/Alex trying to squeeze in a little amorous time in the morning before their son wakes up. "There's still time for me!" Alex insists, urgently, while trying to complete the task at hand, urgently.)

"The Overnight" is a bit sitcom-y and hammy at times, especially the figure of Kurt, whom Schwartzman plays with a sort of graceful ease in his sliminess. He's a petty, selfish man who's convinced the world -- and himself -- that he's actually a great guy, and spends his life playing that role.

Still, it's a funny, smart and randy flick. And I do mean randy. There's quite a bit of nudity, mostly male. If you're a big Adam Scott fan, let's just say that prosthetics played a role in portraying his character's, uh, deficiencies. Ditto for Schwartzman, but in reverse.

Video review: "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” didn’t make much of a splash in theaters last December, but it’s the perfect sort of movie to find a second life on video.

Heart-warming, funny, with a few gentle life-lessons moments that aren’t too preachy, it’s the sort of movie that doesn’t aim very high but hits the modest mark it does set for itself. The film is pretty much a reflection of star Ben Stiller, who also directed from a screenplay by Steve Conrad based on the iconic James Thurber story.

Walter is a meek, reclusive photo editor for Life Magazine, which is about to print its last edition. He daydreams about a grander life full of adventure, mostly involving a co-worker (Kristen Wiig) he’s sweet on.

When the photo negative for the last magazine cover is lost, Walter sets out on an unlikely quest that will take him halfway across the world, and give him some approximation of the wild escapades he’s always envisioned. This includes jumping into shark-infested waters, skateboarding down an erupting volcano and tracking a rare snow leopard in the mountains.

Still being a comedian by background, this version is funnier than previous cinematic iterations of Thurber’s tale. This does have the effect of making Walter a little less sympathetic than he otherwise might have been. Though the laughs are probably worth it.

No one will confuse “Walter Mitty” with great filmmaking. But it’s an earnest, pleasing movie without a lot of fuss or pretension.

The movie is being released on video with an ample amount of extras. The DVD includes a comprehensive making-of documentary, including featurettes on the music, sights and sounds, plus a gallery of reference photographs.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray version, and you add five deleted scenes and eight extended scenes, plus a music video of “Stay Alive” by José González.

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Review: "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"

There’s a point in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” where the film pokes a little fun at “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a movie I’ve always felt deserved a little poking. The irony is that director/star Ben Stiller and screenwriter Steve Conrad are operating in much the same mode as that 2008 fantasy-drama, and pursuing a similar audience.

Based on the James Thurber short story but diverging sharply from it, this is a comfortable, life-affirming movie that doesn’t challenge audiences too much. Yet it’s still an enjoyable, heart-warming time. The movie starts slowly … okay, very slowly … but when it hits its stride it’s as engaging as anything I’ve seen lately.

Walter (Stiller) is a workaday drone at Life magazine, heading up the cave-like photo archive. He’s just turned 42, has no close relationships or connections, and seems to have had his personality slowly extracted out of him over time. He is also prone to fits of fancy – “zoned out,” his family and friends call his little spells – where he imagines himself living a life of notoriety and high adventure.

These days the chief object of his daydreams is Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), a new worker who plays a starring role in the movies playing inside his head. Mostly these involve coming to her rescue, or performing some kind of heroic deed, or otherwise impressing her enough to instantly ensorcel her into becoming his love-mate.

But disaster happens when the magazine is set to publish its final print edition, seguing over to an online-only production with most of the staff losing their jobs. (In the journalism game, we call this “transitioning.”) The changeover team is headed up by a colossal jerk (Adam Scott) who alights upon the mild-mannered Walter as his chief whipping boy.

They want to use a shot by legendary photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) for the final cover, and he’s sent Walter his last roll of film (he’s old-fashioned that way) with still #25 described as his best photo ever: “the quintessence of life.”

Trouble is, photo 25 is missing, so after some prevaricating Walter sets off on a journey to Greenland, Iceland and eventually Afghanistan in search of the elusive photo. He finds himself living exactly the sort of adventures he once only dreamed of: fighting off sharks, jumping aboard a helicopter with a really drunk pilot, etc.

There are a lot of things the filmmakers do right, and some they do wrong. Stiller being a comedian at heart, he inserts some obvious laugh moments to perk up the dreary parts. (The Benjamin Button scene is undoubtedly the funniest.) This has the effect, though, of making the tragedy of Walter’s humdrum life less tragic. We feel less for him than we might have.

I also disliked the fact the screenplay didn’t give Wiig more to do. As we’ve seen from her starring roles, she can be quite a distinct onscreen presence; here, she exists more or less as a vessel for Walter’s fantasies. Pity.

The cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh is just spectacular, as Walter careens on a skateboard toward an erupting volcano or traverses a high mountain ridge. (I think they used the same one from the “Lord of the Rings” movies, but it’s still impressive.)

The use of product placement in the film is bold, and interesting. Rather than having products and logos hanging around in the background as subliminal cues, Stiller & Co. bring it right to the fore, working company brands directly into the storyline. For example, Walter has a running conversation with an eHarmony consultant (Patton Oswalt) about beefing up his profile. And his teenage experience working at Papa John’s pizzeria comes in handy.

And of course there’s Life magazine itself, which is presented in the movie as a last bastion for vivid photographs and stories, a place where every employee embraces the company’s mantra as their personal mission. (I feel compelled to point out the real Life ceased publishing as standalone magazine 13 years ago.)

I enjoyed myself at this movie, even as I realized it didn’t quite hit the mark, and its aim was not all that high to begin with. It’s a perfectly agreeable film that perhaps, a few years down the line, another movie will gently mock, and we’ll smile.