Review: "Belle"

"Belle" is based on a true story, which is to say there exists the barest thread of historical record about Dido Elizabeth Belle, a black woman raised up in elite 18th century British society. The filmmakers then supplied their own story as to what her life would have been like, and link it to a seminal court case on slavery decided by her uncle, who happened to be the chief justice of the English supreme court.

The result is a splendidly acted, overwrought and largely predictable drama that plays out like Jane Austen with a social justice angle. It's a lot of heaving bosoms and men in tights and white wigs, and talk about maintaining one's "position" in the aristocracy while searching for a suitable marital match.

The twist is that Dido (a scintillating Gugu Mbatha-Raw), as the illegitimate daughter of a naval officer who dallied with a black slave, maintains most of the comforts of nobility while being constantly reminded that she will never be fully embraced by its members.

I admired much about the film while rarely being surprised or emotionally engaged by it. This is one of those movies where you can watch the trailer and obtain a snack-size serving of the entire meal.

Young Dido is given over to her aunt and uncle by her father (Matthew Goode), a naval officer who eventually dies. William Murray (Tom Wilkinson) raised himself up to the topmost heights of the legal profession through grit and idealism, though in his later years he's become more attuned to the rigidity of society.

His wife (Emily Watson) is none too pleased about having a "mulatto" in their house. But they pass her off as the companion of their other, legitimate niece, Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon). A few odd accommodations are made for the sake of conformity -- Dido is not allowed to share formal meals with her family or guests, for instance -- but she is shown genuine love.

Flash forward to the girls' debutante years, and a great puzzle emerges. Dido is left quite wealthy by her inheritance, but most great families reject her as a marriage match because of her skin shade and illegitimacy. Elizabeth is well-bred and vivacious, but left penniless after own father remarried and moved on with a new family.

Their salvation would appear to arrive in the form of the wealthy and powerful Ashford clan. Matriarch (Miranda Richardson) can't believe "how black" Dido is, but younger son Oliver (James Norton) is smitten -- not to mention, he needs her dowry to help launch his career. Older son James (Tom Felton) pitches woo at Elizabeth, despite his disgust at her cousin -- until, that is, he learns she has no inheritance.

Dido's true passion is for John Davinier (Sam Reid), a commoner who hopes to rise up through the law as Dido's uncle did, and becomes his pupil. But his romantic ideas about changing society crash up against her family's preference for a well-ordered life. Especially as it relates to the case of the slave ship Zong, a spectacular case before the high court in which 142 slaves were drowned at sea to form the basis for an insurance claim.

The cast acquits themselves well, with Wilkinson and Mbatha-Raw the stars of the show. But director Amma Asante and screenwriter Misan Sagay seem more interested in making a statement than really getting inside Dido's head.

"Belle" wears its sense of importance self-consciously, and turns a novel idea into a tiresome lecture.

Review: "Cosmopolis"

A deeply unaffecting journey through a labyrinth of high finance and base humanity, "Cosmopolis" is a parable with no punch.

Based on the novel by Don DeLillo, unread by me, writer/director David Cronenberg has given us a highly stylized affair with a string of actors delivering long, rambling exchanges of dialogue with all the portentousness of a Shakespearean drama and all the coherence of a psychoanalysis session.

What is meant to be deadly serious is often quite silly, when it's not stultifyingly dull.

The action takes place largely inside a luxurious stretch limousine over the course of a single day. Eric Packer, a 28-year-old billionaire, decides he needs a haircut. This being New York City, getting there takes a very long time, additionally complicated by a visit by the President and a street funeral procession for a beloved rap artist.

Along the way Packer picks up and dispenses passengers, including underlings (Jay Baruchel, Samantha Morton, Emily Hampshire among them), his current mistress (Juliette Binoche) for an in-car romp, and his newly-married wife Elise (Sarah Gadon). They mostly talk about their finance schemes, including a risky bet against the Chinese yuan.

At one point Packer, who receives a physical exam from a doctor every single day, converses with a female employee while receiving a thorough prostate exam that leaves him quivering with ... something.

To these people, money is not just power but fodder for outwardly deep intellectual discussions about life, humanity and destiny. "Capital is intent," asserts one flunky, whose job title includes the word "theory," a moniker that suggests a visit from the SEC may be forthcoming.

"People eat and sleep in the shadow of what we do," another says, and he's got a better handle. Packer is like the Wizard of Oz, existing behind a carefully guarded veil that hides him from the 99 percent, who object not just to their lack but to the shameless way he exerts his surplus.

Certainly, Packer's trappings suggest the rarified world in which he lives. His limo puts the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise to shame, replete with glowing blue lights and computer screens -- even a bar stocked with booze and snacks, plus a convenient way to dispose of the resulting byproducts. At one point, he inquires about purchasing a famous chapel, ancient stone walls and all, and having it sequestered in his apartment.

There are mysterious references to The Complex, a shadowy group that seems to know about impending events before they actually happen, such as a spontaneous Occupy Wall Street-type uprising complete with people immolating themselves, or an important global finance minister being brutally attacked on live television.

How do they know these things? Is The Complex reading the very vibrations of the collective human unconscious to discern what lies in its soul? Or, more likely, is it just a bunch of apocalyptic-sounding mumbo-jumbo?

Torval (Kevin Durand), Packer's hulking chief of security, walks on foot outside the creeping limousine, occasionally poking his head in the window to pass on new threat calculations from The Complex.

Packer does eventually get out of his car, which only leads to stranger encounters. He tries repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) to entice his wife, who is practically a stranger to him, to have sex. We eventually meet the driver of the limo, and the barber. And the Pastry Assassin. (You'll see.) Things culminate with a potentially deadly confrontation with a deranged(?) man (Paul Giamatti) who claims to know everything there is to know about Packer.

The characters speak to each other in off-putting formal tones, like grad students debating in a philosophy seminar. "I know this" is an oft-repeated line, as if they were trying to pinpoint their place in the universe by demonstrating how much knowledge they possess, and how they wield it to crush or be crushed.

An ambitious disaster, "Cosmopolis" is a preening, pretentious mess of a movie. I know this.

1.5 stars out of four

Review: "A Dangerous Method"

I greatly enjoyed "A Dangerous Method," though I recognize it's not for everyone. It's a fictionalized version of the relationship between three pivotal figures in the development of psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud, his protégé Carl Jung and Sabina Spielrein, a patient of Jung's who became his lover and then a pioneering psychologist in her own right.

The movie is a mixture of esoteric discussions on the nature of the human mind and depictions of tortured sexuality. One minute, the characters are debating the way their budding discipline is being ostracized by the greater scientific community; the next, they're engaging in kinky sex -- one getting whipped while she watches herself in the mirror, etc.

I found the juxtaposition of intellectual and carnal impulses delightful, but then I'm a very thin slice of the movie-going demographic -- a psychology major my first two years in college, before switching to film and journalism. "A Dangerous Method" is based on the play "The Talking Cure" by Christopher Hampton (who also penned the screenplay).

For me, it was like watching dry history from my old textbooks brought to vivid, neurotic life. A terrific trio of actors illuminate the (supposed) private lives of these stuffy figures, their collaborations and conflicts.

Others, though, may simply dismiss it as high-brow erotica with a brainy bent.

The film is directed by David Cronenberg, and if ever there were a filmmaker made to delve into the psycho-sexual labyrinths of Freud & Co., it's him. Cronenberg ("Dead Ringers") has had a career flitting between mainstream and art films, straight-out horror and deeply disquieting dramas. His movies ("Videodrome") have always had a healthy dose of id-driven fear and loathing slithering under their slick surface.

Michael Fassbender plays Jung, who in 1904 was a 29-year-old doctor practicing the still-revolutionary "psychanalysis" invented by Freud. He is assigned as a patient Sabina, a 19-year-old Russian Jew who's had thoughts of becoming a psychologist herself, but is currently suffering from crippling mental instability.

Knightley, with her willowy beauty and fierce, large eyes, makes quite an impression as Sabina, contorting her body and unhinging her lower jaw in a convincing physical manifestation of her mind's anguish. She looks like her soul is so offended by the stain of her mortal failings, it's trying to shunt off its own fleshy sheath.

Eventually Sabina's psychosis is brought under control using classic Freudian theories about sexual repression, and she becomes Jung's student. Frustrated by trying to understand sex-based impulses when she has no intimate experience herself, she initiates as affair with Jung, who is married to a very wealthy woman (Sarah Gadon).

Things really get crackling when Freud steps into the picture. Played by Viggo Mortensen with magisterial authority, Freud views himself as both a pioneer and victim, attempting to rewrite the laws of science regarding the human mind, yet stubborn in his insistence that a psychologist's role is not to cure his patients but merely help them understand themselves.

"I can assure you than in a hundred years time, our work will still be rejected," he tells Jung at their first meeting. "Columbus, you know, had no idea what country he'd discovered. Like him, I am in the dark. All I know is I've set foot on the shore, and the country exists."

The two men's philosophies clash in time, with Jung feeling constrained by Freud's view of all psychoses as sexual in origin. "There must be more than one hinge to the universe," he tells Sabina.

Again, thrilling stuff from my vantage point, but maybe not yours.

3.5 stars out of four