I'm a big fan of Lola Kirke, a young actress whose name you probably don't know. She's worked in indies and smaller films over the past few years, building a solid resume without ever breaking into stardom.
I'm not sure if that's something she'll ever achieve, mostly because she doesn't seem to want it.
Kirke has what the old Hollywood moguls called "presence" -- when she's onscreen, she's always the one you're watching. She's comfortable in her own skin and isn't afraid to show her characters' flaws, inside or out.
She's got an interesting mix of vulnerability and stubbornness, often playing young women who aren't very sure of themselves but find a reason to trust their own authenticity. Check out "Mistress America," in which Kirke was terrific opposite Greta Gerwig.
I was less enthralled with her newest turn, "Broken Diamonds," out this week on VOD. She plays Cindy, a woman with serious mental illness, in her case schizophrenia. But the movie's not really about her, instead focusing on Cindy's brother Scott, played by Ben Platte.
Hollywood has always loved outlaw movies, almost since the very first celluloid clacked through a projector, and since "Bonnie & Clyde" in 1967 it's had a particular fascination for doomed couples on open-sky crime sprees. It's been imitated countless times, from the gritty "The Getaway" to the hazy, dreamlike "Ain't Them Bodies Saints."
"Dreamland" is closer to the latter, a story less concerned with the actual mechanics of robbing banks than the inner emotional journey of its two protagonists. It's an astonishingly beautiful film, set in the 1930s Texas dust bowl, with cinematographer Lyle Vincent's vibrant warm hues giving way to nearly colorless stretches of gray-brown.
You could snip out most any frame of the movie and have a nifty postcard keepsake.
Margot Robbie stars as Allison Wells, a notorious bank robber on the run after things went to hell on her last job. Several people were killed, including a little girl and her lover/partner in crime, Perry (Garrett Hedlund). The lawmen and newspapers have been playing her up as a cold-hearted she-devil, though she's got another story to tell. Actually, several versions of it.
Robbie's blue eyes and tawny skin seem to fill the screen like a small sun, hurtling toward burnout.
Shot in the leg, Allison holes up in the barn of 17-year-old Eugene (Finn Cole), a kid with his nose in the dirt and head in the clouds. He steals detective comic books and dreams of reuniting with his long-departed father, who ran out on them when he was little and moved to Mexico.
He loathes his deputy stepdad (Travis Fimmel), who wears a strange, vaguely Hitler-esque haircut. His own blue eyes are the icy counterpoint to Allison's heat. Gene does have a soft spot for his hard-pressed mom (Kerry Condon) and kid sister, Phoebe (Darby Camp).
The wonderful Lola Kirke provides the narration as Phoebe's grown self looking back long years to the events that took place in 1935.
There really isn't a whole lot of story to speak of. Director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte
and screenwriter Nicolaas Zwart concentrate on setting up situations and character impulses, and then seeing how the pieces will move around on their own.
We know that Gene will be completely ensorceled by Allison, and she will do little to discourage this sentiment so long as he's helping her hide out and heal up. And that the $20,000 bounty on her head will lead the locals to start closing in on the couple, with Gene's stepdad as the head bloodhound.
And eventually, she will need to move on and Gene will go with her. I'm not giving anything away; the narration says as much in the very beginning, Phoebe talking about the legend of her brother and "the Wells woman."
I just loved the look of this film, with great attention detail paid to the frayed edges of the people's clothing, the rusty screws in the bed of the family truck and the slight sheen of sweat that hangs on people's foreheads to remind us of the Texas crop-killing drought.
When things go south, people tend to get squirrelly, acting normal on the surface but ready to jump at the slightest chance to change the dire direction of things -- even if it chances things getting worse. Gosh, that sounds familiar...
Even the smallest supporting actors are right in the groove, never altering the sense of well-worn authenticity. I especially liked Stephen Dinh as Joe, Gene's American Indian friend looking for his own way out, and Joe Berryman as the gimlet-eyed local sheriff, who eats BS for breakfast.
There's one terrific sequence where Gene goes off to take a peek at the evidence the police have against Allison while everyone is at a town dance, as an old-timer performs energetic hambone -- percussive knee-slapping and such -- supplying the tension-building music underneath. Marvelous.
The film does seem to be missing a few pieces, a little more backstory for Allison and more about Gene's longing for his dad's memory to fill out the connective tissue. In an age where I'm constantly harping about how many movies are too long, here's a handsome one that needed a little more fat on the bone.
It’s a supernatural teen romance/adventure flick based on a (they tell me) popular YA novel by Lauren Kate. The main character is a teen girl who’s new to town and uncertain of herself, falling hard for a mysterious golden boy who turns out to be Much More Than He Seems.
There’s even a darkling competitor for her affections, who’s dreamy but not quite as dreamy as Much More boy.
You can criticize the “Twilight” movies, but at least the main actors were all within hopping distance of the ages of their characters, at least when the first movie came out. “Fallen” has Hollywood’s usual cast of 25- to almost-30-year-olds playing 16 and 17.
The film’s production and release has been troubled. It originally was supposed to come out almost two years ago, finally got dribbled out in places like Singapore and the Philippines last year, the United Kingdom this spring and is now being given a brief U.S. release before coming out on video 3½ weeks later.
Despite the tragic birthing process, I have to admit the movie isn’t bad. It’s got a solid cast, including Addison Timlin, Jeremy Irvine (“War Horse”), Joely Richardson and Lola Kirke, who was wonderful in the little-seen “Mistress America.”
Director Scott Hicks is no slouch, nominated for two Oscars for “Shine.” Screenwriting trio Kathryn Price, Nichole Millard and Michael Arlen Ross do a decent job of adapting Kate’s very derivative fiction into a passable screenplay.
Timlin plays Lucinda Price, a smart girl who’s been tormented by shadowy visions that have left her enrolled by court order in the Sword and Cross reform school. It’s housed in a massive castle where it’s always autumn and the gardeners never seem to keep up with the leaf-raking. She quickly runs afoul of the resident goth girl/bully (Sianoa Smit-McPhee), but befriends nerdy nonstop-talker Penn (Kirke).
Luce is immediately smitten with Daniel (Irvine), the handsome boy who spends all his time doing charcoal drawings in class. He pretends to ignore her or is even outright hostile, but their spark can’t be denied.
(I, for one, am happy to see a movie in which a fair-haired lad is the object of affection. Us blond boys have had a rough romantic run at the movies as of late.)
Harrison Gilbertson plays Cam, the long-haired (brunette!) bad boy who always seems to be in trouble with the law or teachers. He makes his own play for Luce and she responds, if for no other reason than the contrast with Daniel’s indifference.
Richardson plays the philosophy and religion teacher, whose curriculum seems to center entirely on biblical stories about the “Fallen” -- angels who chose neither God or Lucifer’s side in the great battle of heaven. Preferring the sanctity of human love, they’re cursed to roam the Earth in human form.
It’s not often you see a movie actually lay out its entire metaphysical blueprint -- in a classroom, no less -- so there is no confusion about who’s playing what role in the larger story.
Even though it contains few surprises, “Fallen” really isn’t that awful as teen romances go. Nobody sucks any blood or turns into a wolf, though don’t be surprised if some celestial CGI wings make an appearance near the end. It ain’t heaven, but it’s a long ways from hellish filmmaking.
Many critics and audiences went nuts for “Frances Ha,” the last collaboration between writer/director Noah Baumbach and actress/screenwriter Greta Gerwig, but not me. I found it an unfocused and rambling portrait of a twentysomething woman trying to find a purpose in New York City. So I approached their next film together, “Mistress America,” with some hesitation.
Even though thematically the movies are kissing cousins, “Mistress” is a much more fully realized and vibrant work. Here Gerwig is not the subject of the story but its object. Her character, Brooke Cardinas, is a 30-year-old New Yorker who seems to have a lot of jobs and grand ideas, but all of them are transitory. She’s got a load of panache and personality, the sort of person who lights up a room and effortlessly takes it over.
She is described, aptly, as a woman who is spending her youth well.
It’s no wonder that Brooke is captivating to the actual protagonist, Tracy Fishko, an 18-year-old Barnard College freshman. They’re thrown together because Tracy’s mom and Brooke’s dad are marrying each other, which means they’re soon to be step-sisters. Brooke takes Tracy, who’s been struggling to fit in at school, under her ample wing for a night of fun and freedom, essentially auditioning to become her role model and muse.
Soon Tracy, who aspires to be a writer but has been declined by the hoity-toity campus literary society, is penning a vivid and not-very-well-disguised portrait of Brooke -- her fearlessness and foibles, her bright imaginings and doomed plans. Tracy reads portions of her short story throughout the film, serving as a sort of narration.
This is a very, very smart film about how people consciously and unconsciously are inspired by and imitate others. It’s also very self-aware, such as when the two women are silhouetted at night against a lit-up bridge as a groovy tune plays on the soundtrack, and one says to the other: “We look like we’re in a song!”
Tracy is played by Lola Kirke, who’s had a few small roles here and there, but announces herself with this nuanced, emotionally true performance. She has that rare ability to let the audience see her thinking, so we are swept along with Tracy as she beholds the amazing Brooke and is inevitably pulled toward her and starts emulating her.
Tracy has her own small circle of friends, notably Tony (Matthew Shear), a sensitive beta-male type who shares her literary ambitions. They hang out during first semester; both rejected by the lit society, and form their own little circle of trust. It seems like they must end up as a couple, but as often happens in real life the current pulls us in other directions. Tony winds up dating Nicolette (Jasmine Cephas Jones), who is defined by her jealousy.
Things really get interesting when Brooke’s plans to open a restaurant hit a financial snafu, and she’s led to approaching a wealthy ex-boyfriend, Dylan (Michael Chernus), for the cash. Unfortunately, he’s now married to Brooke’s former best friend, Maimie-Claire (Heather Lind), who -- as she sees it -- stole her man, her T-shirt design, her cats and her richly deserved life of idle comfort.
Tracy and Brooke decamp to Michael and Maimie-Claire’s extravagant Greenwich, Conn., mansion, along with Tony, who’s providing the ride, and Nicolette, who’s providing the suspicion. This whole gaggle shows up on their doorstep, and at first I had visions of the same thing happening in “Funny People,” a potentially great movie that flushed itself down the commode with an ill-advised and rambling visit to an ex’s abode.
But this encounter, which essentially takes up the last third of the film, merely brings all the characters into sharper focus. The dynamic between Tracy and Brooke is examined, exposed and fundamentally altered. The muse gets P.O.’d at the artist.
The dialogue is razor-sharp and eminently quotable: “It was too much fun to agree with her.” “He’s the sort of guy I hate, except that I’m in love with him.” “I’m the same! I’m just the same in a different direction now.”
Smart, brave, probing and sensitive, “Mistress America” shows us that movies about messy people don’t have to be a mess themselves.
