Review: "Palmer"

 

It's always interesting that wherever someone's creative talents first bring them notice -- music, stand-up comedy, voice actors, writers, TV -- how so many eventually find their way to film acting. Any kind of ability as a storyteller can be solid grooming for performing in a movie. 

The crossover between singers and the movies is surprisingly strong, going back to the early days of cinema where they largely recruited talent from song-and-dance men and women of vaudeville. Barbra Streisand, Bing Crosby, Elvis, Bette Midler, Beyonce and Frank Sinatra are just a few.

I'm still deciding where Justin Timberlake will land in that pantheon. I haven't been terribly impressed with his onscreen work thus far, and aside from voice work on the "Trolls" movies and such, he hasn't appeared in a feature film for eight years. 

(Remember "Runner Runner?" I didn't.)

His new film, "Palmer," is a solid move in the right direction. It's a deliberately gritty, non-showy role -- the sort of low-budget thing someone of Timberlake's stature makes to announce that he wants to be taken seriously as an actor. It's not a great film, but it's a solid turn for him and the problems I had with the movie weren't centered on his performance.

He plays Eddie Palmer, an ex-con who is just being released from prison after 12 years for attempted murder. He moves back to his sleepy Louisiana town, where he used to be a big wheel as a star quarterback who got a scholarship to play at LSU. But he got hurt, got hooked on pills, did some terrible deeds and got pegged as the "golden boy gone bad."

Palmer, as he likes to be known, doesn't have a lot of prospects as he returns home. His parents lit out when he was a kid, and the grandmother who raised him, Vivian (the great June Squibb), is getting on in years now. He hooks up with his old loser buddies, drinks a lot of beer at the local dive, and lands the only job he can as an elementary school janitor. 

His boss (Lance E. Nichols), doesn't even give him his own set of keys.

With his hair buzzed to nothing, beefy physique and sullen expression etched on his face -- finally showing some creases after decades of fame -- Timberlake is miles away from his days as an NSYNC boy band star.

The story (screenplay by Cheryl Guerriero) goes in a direction we don't expect. Vivian has a tenant at the trailer home on her property, Shelly (Juno Palmer), who lives with her young son, Sam (Ryder Allen). Shelly is barely a mom, often lighting out to party and drug for days at a time, leaving her kid in Vivian's care. Soon after Palmer returns Shelly disappears, seemingly for good this time, and he suddenly finds himself responsible for watching out for Sam.

Sam is utterly irrepressible, a kid of pure heart and endless optimism. He also prefers "girl" stuff like princesses and barrettes and tea parties, and is not at all ashamed of it. Needless to say, this buys him a lot of teasing, and worse, from the kids at school.

Palmer isn't quite sure what to make of this. Let's face it, back in his day he probably would've been one of the boys bullying Sam. But he finds some surprising measure of self-worth in his new role as protector and father figure.

It's a terrifically self-confident performance for Allen, in his very first feature film role. I wish the movie could've done a little more to get inside his head and see what makes Sam tick. I don't think director Fisher Stevens wanted to make Sam explicitly trans or gay, just different. The focus isn't on Sam's gender issues, but how Palmer reacts to them.

Alisha Wainwright turns up as Maggie, Sam's school teacher who soon takes a shine to Palmer -- first to check him out as a suitable guardian for Sam, and later out of genuine interest as a fellow fractured person. 

It's the sort of role that's basically obligatory in a movie like this, but she puts subtle spins and flavors into the role.

Temple is also very good as Shelly, who makes a return late in the story that's somewhat predictable but still lands with a solid emotional smack. Early on the movie portrays her as heartless and hopeless, and Temple gives us small notes of redemptive qualities.

There are also some nice supporting performances in the background, such as Jesse C. Boyd as one of Palmer's buddies, stuck in an eternal rut he has no interest in climbing out of. Dean Winters has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it turn as Shelly's abusive boyfriend.

"Palmer" is one of those movies that has a lot of admirable things going on, though it seems like it's missing some of the connective tissue that would bind it together more coherently. It does give Timberlake a platform to show off some non-musical chops I hadn't expected out of him -- and a wish to see more.

Review: "Table 19"

Screenwriters Jay and Mark Duplass more or less established the mumblecore genre, known for its rambling, naturalistic dialogue punctuated with sly jokes. "Table 19" is familiar territory, but also not. It's got more emotional resonance than we're used to seeing from these movies, though plenty of laughs, too.

Anna Kendrick is first-among-equals as Eloise, one of six guests at the titular table of losers at the wedding of her oldest friend. El was actually the bridesmaid and helped plan the wedding, so her voice has authority when she tells the other guests how each table was organized: the grandparents, the cousins, eligible singles, shaky singles, the kids' table, etc.

The literal last, table 19, consists of people who should've known to check "declines with regrets" rather than attend, El says. They're the back of the room, shunted off and forgotten. El herself has self-demoted because she used to date Teddy (Wyatt Russell), the bride's brother and also the best man. They just broke up a couple of months ago, and it's obvious to all that El has come because she's looking to have it out with him.

It's essentially one long freewheeling conversation, that starts out with the table-mates denying that they've been assigned to the worst table, then sussing out why they got disrespected, and finally moving on to more substantial exploration.

I'm not giving anything away by revealing that halfway through the movie, they decamp en masse. More than anything it reminded me of "The Breakfast Club," where hijinks give way to somber, probing moments.

It's definitely a motley crew. Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson are Bina and Jerry Kepp, a long-married couple who own a diner in Columbus, Ohio. Either the bride or groom's family (I forget) is also in the business, so the invitation seems like more a courtesy than a call to come. She wanted to attend, he didn't, so it's already tense between them. Their marriage has reached the point where they're more snarky best friends than lovers.

One of the things they like to do is argue a bit, then flip each other off simultaneously after turning their backs. When that's your "cute thing," you know you're in trouble.

Tony Revolori plays Renzo, a nervous high school kid here to represent his family, which also has business ties. Renzo is a desperate virgin who's hoping a wedding is a great way to change that. Interestingly, his (heard-not-seen) mother is actually the one pushing him to do this. She tells him his manhood -- not the concept; his actual parts -- is a gift from God, and the wedding holds better odds for him scoring than the junior prom, which is the same weekend.

Like all teens Renzo is fervently annoyed by his mother, without realizing she's actually the best mom in the world.

Stephen Merchant is Walter, cousin to the bride. Very tall and very shy, Walter likes to disappear into the background drapes and avoid conversations. You'll find out why. 

One running gag is about Bina's maroon coat, which matches those of the servers at the wedding. Bina is continually annoyed when they mistake her for one of them, so she gives it to Walter. It tells you everything you need to know about him that when a worker instructs him to go bring drinks to table or whatnot, Walter doesn't object but tranquilly shambles off to comply.

Nanny Jo (June Squibb) -- everyone calls her that, even though she's retired -- was the first caretaker to the bride's family. Jo is operating under the delusion that she's a beloved figure invited to watch her former charges become full-fledged adults, but really they hardly remember her. She's plucky, plainspoken and has that strange sort of maternal strength that some childless women gain over the years.

Where things go, I won't tell you, though you can probably guess. El and Teddy have their face-off, and we learn more about them that we'd guess. Kendrick's a master at showing us normal women with strains of grace and neuroticism they struggle to conceal. I also really liked Russell, who acts like a cad but maybe has reason to. He was also a soulful presence in the great, virtually unseen "Everybody Wants Some!!".

There's a fun departure with a dreamy fellow played by Thomas Cocquere, who sidles up to El at the start of the wedding and starts tossing off witticisms and flirtations. She later enlists him for a scorching dance together to make Teddy jealous. We think we know where this is going, though maybe that his name is Huck provides a cautionary note. 

As multiple people point out, no one is named Huck anymore.

Directed by Jeffrey Blitz, whose background is mostly in television, "Table 19" is a fun and smart little film celebrating the screw-ups and the outcasts. The thing is, everybody screws up and everybody gets cast out, at least at some point in their life, though some of us maybe more than others. 

Review: "Nebraska"

"Nebraska" is a movie of pauses and unspoken words. If you were to spell out everything that happens in the film and everything that's said, it wouldn't amount to much. A lot of people might find it rather slow, but they aren't the sort who go to a black-and-white dark comedy/drama from the guy who directed "Sideways" and "The Descendants," anyway.

Their loss.

Although "Nebraska" is a movie of slowness and deliberateness, director Alexander Payne doesn't revel in being so. His takes are long, but don't tarry a second longer than needed. The people speak in few words, the main character in so few he's practically mute. Yet any more dialogue would seem too much.

The plot is ... a non-story. A crotchety old man with some degree of undiagnosed dementia wants to travel from his home in Billings, Montana, to Lincoln, Nebraska, to claim his $1 million prize he received a letter about in the mail.

The "prize" is simply one of those scams where you sign up for some magazine subscriptions and you're entered into a contest. Of course, the letter has dollar signs and says "You are a winner!", so old folks like Woodrow Grant (Bruce Dern) are fooled into handing over their money.

Woody's insistence borders on obsession, to the point he starts walking cross-country to get his money. The police dutifully pick him up and return him safely home every time, but his family's so fed up that younger son Dave (Will Forte) finally agrees to drive him to Lincoln just to put the matter to rest.

Payne and screenwriter Bob Nelson slowly peel back the layers of Woody, a guy who at first seems like a walking joke but gradually is revealed as nothing less than an American icon. Woody came from a small farm, went to war and didn't talk about what he did there, got himself a wife and a business, drank too much and lived a life of quotidian repetition.

Now he's old, his mind is going, his wife and sons are exasperated by his erratic behavior, and basically everyone is just waiting for him to die, including Woody himself.

Dern is just terrific as Woody, a total transformation that we don't even question. With his nimbus of scattered white hair, unshaven face and neck, he looks half a step up from homeless. He walks in a hunched, stiff-legged shamble, as if he were a mummified duck.

While Woody wears the mien of a stubborn loner, Dern subtly reveals the yearning inside him. Woody doesn't really have any use for the money, only able to specify "a truck and a compressor" when asked what he'll buy. What he really wants is to be a somebody, instead of the nobody he's become.

Things really ratchet up when Woody and Dave stop in his tiny hometown of Hawthorne, where the social calendar seems to consist of drinking beer and watching TV, then going to the local bar to do the same in the company of others. Woody casually mentions the prize when asked why he's back, and the locals accept the sham as willingly as did he, turning the town joke into the big celebrity.

Ed Pegram (Stacy Keach) is the local big man and bully, a former business partner of Woody's, who figures he's owed a slice of the pie because ... well, just because. Worse yet, some of Woody's relatives get the same idea in their noggins.

June Squibb shines as Woody's put-upon wife, who obviously decided long ago to give out as much grief as she's gotten out of life. It's a brassy, showy part, and Squibb milks it for every ounce while still remaining believable as a person. I also enjoyed Bob Odenkirk as their older, more settled offspring.

The best scenes are between Forte and Dern, as the dutiful son tries to puzzle out the inscrutability of his father before he falls into the same trap of passivity and obstinacy himself. Recently split up from his girlfriend, Dave quizzes Woody about getting married and having kids. "You must have been in love at first?" "Never came up," is the laconic reply.

"Nebraska" is not a film for everyone, its rhythms too languorous for people who just want to munch their popcorn and "have a good time." But for those who can appreciate the unhurried unraveling of a mystery, the riddle of the extraordinary ordinary man, it's a delicious dark treat.