Review: "Dreamland"

 

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.

Review: "Lean on Pete"

This was not the film I was expecting.

You’d think a movie about a boy and a horse would be uplifting and affirming; e.g., damaged human and damaged animal learn to heal together, in the mold of “Seabiscuit.” But stories about young people who grow attached to animals have a long cinematic tradition of sadness and loss.

“Lean on Pete” is from writer/director Andrew Haigh, whose last film, “45 Years,” was a sharp and probing exploration of the hidden pain behind a long marriage. Based on the novel by Willy Vlautin, “Pete” is about a teen boy, Charlie (Charlie Plummer), who has managed to keep a positive outlook despite a life filled with uncertainty and abandonment -- emotionally and otherwise.

Then he gets a job working for a bottom-feeding horse trainer, chiefly looking after an over-the-hill, never-was quarterhorse named Lean on Pete. Normally in a movie of this sort, this would be when circumstances start to turn around for Charlie. He’d start riding Pete, they win the big race, etc.

But instead, things turn into a pile of manure as big as those he shovels out of the stable on a daily basis.

Obviously I don’t want to give anything away, but suffice to say it involves a cross-country journey in which Charlie and Pete are running away as much as they are running toward something. It’s a noble quest, not for any higher purpose beyond continued existence and respect as living beings worth more than what they can do for others.

Plummer is terrific, playing a man-child -- he supplies his age as 16, 18 or 15 at various times -- who is going through big life-changing experiences before he has had a chance to form the emotional armor to protect him. It’s that time in a person’s life where trivialities seem momentous, while truly impactful things are shunted to the side until we can deal with them.

His dad is Ray (Travis Fimmel), a blue-collar loser who moves from place to place and job to job, partying and sleeping around. But he truly loves his kid, and gives Charlie positive encouragement -- at least when he’s around long enough to do so. Charlie mostly lives off Cap’n Crunch and TV.

A new father figure appears in the form of Del (Steve Buscemi), a fourth-rate horse trainer. He used to run around 20 horses, now he’s down to a handful. He tools around in his ancient Ford pickup and trailer, anywhere he can make a few bucks running his horses in a race, whether it’s at a decaying track or just a barn jump.

Del takes Charlie under his wing, showing him the ropes and praising the young man’s work ethic. But he shoos Charlie away from the racing life. “You should do something else, before you can’t do anything else,” Del says.

Charlie also finds a friend in Bonnie (Chloë Sevigny), who rides jockey for Del from time to time. She tells Charlie about what it’s like to be a woman in an old-school man’s sport, freely offering her friendship and advice. Such as: don’t treat the horses like pets. Lean on Pete is scraping the bottom of Del’s very shallow barrel, a 5-year-old quarterhorse who’s just fast enough to win a few purses before age and injury catch up.

But it becomes clear that Del, and even Bonnie, view Pete and his ilk as mere conveyances for their own curdled dreams, to be used and cast off as needed. Del makes cryptic references to selling horses “down to Mexico,” and it’s not hard to guess what that means.

I admit that when the film embarked on the second half of its journey, I was initially reluctant to go along on their tough ride. Charlie and Pete have some run-ins, mostly bad, though they encounter a few kind souls. Plummer, already a slender kid, grows positively stick-like as their fortunes fade.

Haigh doesn’t give us the usual easy emotional entry points. For example, he doesn’t shoot Pete in close-up, to suggest the bond between man and beast. And Charlie never once climbs onto Pete’s back. He doesn’t want to be just somebody else demanding a fast ride.

“Lean on Pete” is the wrenching story of a young man yearning for the simplest thing: to be loved and wanted, and return the same. For a while, the best he can do is a horse no one else sees much worth in. That shared need gives them a sort of startling grace.

Video review: "Maggie's Plan"

A smart and sharp comedy with a streak of insightful social commentary, “Maggie’s Plan” is the latest starring Greta Gerwig, the current queen of indies. Writer/director Rebecca Miller fashions a story that’s funny, sad -- even enraging at times – about the conflicting choices young women face these days.

Maggie is an accomplished woman who has a great job, great friends (Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph) and an overall wonderful life. The one thing she’s lousy at his relationships. But she hears the tick-tick-tick of that biological clock, and determines to have a baby on her own. She arranges a donor and seems headed for a life of bliss as a mother.

But then she falls for John (Ethan Hawke), a brilliant but troublesome academic who wants out of his miserable marriage to Georgette (Julianne Moore), a domineering type. Flash forward a couple of years, and Maggie now has a wondrous little girl, takes care of John’s kids… and John, too. He’s writing a novel that will never be finished, and Maggie finds herself burdened with an extended family she didn’t really plan on.

So she hatches a scheme to get John and Georgette back together. He’s like a car she bought that, showing a bunch of knocks and pings once it got down the road a bit, she’s looking to trade into the dealership.

“Maggie’s Plan” is very funny, with wonderful performances by the three main actors. Mina Sundwall also is terrific as John’s teenage daughter, who knows a lot more about what’s going on than the adults do.

But the film goes the extra mile to explore these people and their confounded relationships, and question whether having a spouse is really necessary to a rewarding life as a parent.

Bonus features are decent. Miller provides a feature-length audio commentary track; there are funny outtakes; a Q&A at the Sundance Film Festival; and a making-of documentary short.

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Review: "Warcraft"

The record for movie adaptations of video games is just atrocious… and it’s not getting any better with the release of “Warcraft.” Fantasy movies don’t fare so well either, so it’s got the double whammy effect.

“Warcraft” has been in development for literally 10 years, when the World of Warcraft online game was just reaching its peak, with millions of people playing characters from a broad range of fantastical races and abilities. There are also some precursor strategy games, novels, collectible figures, replica weapons, and other offshoots of a multi-billion-dollar empire.

(And I know of which I speak. In the years B.K. – before kids – I was an 80 paladin/80 warlock/80 death knight/68 priest/59 rogue on the Kul Tiras realm of WoW.)

It’s not an overstatement to say that Warcraft is the first video game to become a cultural phenomenon. The movie, a $160 million extravaganza heavy on top-drawer CGI animation, became almost inevitable.

I wish it weren’t.

The movie has a slapdash, chaotic feel, as if the filmmakers were trying to stitch together footage shot during two or three different productions. There are continuity errors all over the place – one warrior is broken out of prison, given his armor back, and in the very next scene his armor is gone and he’s barefoot for some reason. Another major figure is revealed to be corrupted by dark magic… but when and how was he corrupted?

There’s missing backstory and motivations all over the place. We watch characters do things without understanding why.

Director Duncan Jones, a promising filmmaker who made the excellent “Moon” a few years ago, co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Leavitt, and I can only guess they were shackled by restrictions from Blizzard, the company behind Warcraft. I would posit they were given a checklist of story elements and characters and ordered to fit it all together somehow.

The story is set in the early days of the Warcraft mythology, when the bestial orcs first crossed over from their dying world into that of the humans, setting off battle. There are also quick nods to a few other races on the “Alliance” side of the game, notably elves and dwarves, but the Horde is just orcs. (Thankfully no pandas, at least!)

The orcs are a wonder to behold, painted with wondrous detail by the animators. They’re huge, seven feet tall and thick as oaks, with green skin and protruding tusks, and a vaguely American Indian style of adornment. A few of the nastier ones even have… other protrusions.

Toby Kebbell plays (through voice and motion-capture performance) the orc hero Durotan, a noble savage who fears for the plight of his people, including a newly born son. Their leader, Gul’dan (Daniel Wu), is a mighty wizard wielding a terrible green magic called Fel, which he uses to open a portal to the human world of Azeroth. But it requires a sacrifice of lives, not to mention poisoning the very land.

On the human side is Lothar (Travis Fimmel), commander of the forces of King Llane (Dominic Cooper), who’s called upon to resist the orcish invaders. He’s an odd hero; he seems more peckish than resolute.

Ben Foster plays Medivh, the stern magical guardian of the realm, who mostly broods in his lonesome soaring tower, occasionally dipping into a pool of blue goo to revive his powers. Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer) is the classic exposition character, a wayward wizard who turns up whenever the plot needs explaining or moving along.

Somewhere in the middle is Garona (Paula Patton, in heavy green body paint), a half-breed orc who’s captured by Lothar and recruited to their cause. The two start exchanging jungle fever-type stares, though Garona helpfully warns him that he would be injured if he tried to lie with her.

Question: if this is the first time the orcs have crossed over into this world, how did a human breed with one of them years ago to create Garona? If you’re asking these sorts of questions, you’re thinking too hard to enjoy this movie.

“Warcraft” is a great-looking flick that should have been a lot more fun, and a lot less silly, than it is.

Review: "Maggie's Plan"

About 25 years ago Vice President Dan Quayle caused a stink when he criticized Murphy Brown’s decision to have a baby without getting married, or even locking down a permanent male partner (beyond providing the requisite genetic material). The controversy seems almost quaint today, given society’s rapidly changing mores on what constitutes a proper family (not to mention that Murphy was a fictional TV character).

I thought of this while watching “Maggie’s Plan” because the film serves as the unwitting antithesis of Quayle’s argument. Greta Gerwig plays the titular young woman whose plan to go the single mother route is derailed when she falls in love with a married man, and suddenly finds herself thrust into stewardship of an entire family.

With all the heartbreak and pain she suffers -- and causes -- it becomes pretty clear by the end that staying single would’ve been the best route to happiness for everyone involved.

The film is written and directed by Rebecca Miller, her fifth feature film over the past two decades. It’s a smart and wry exploration of yet another fully fleshed Gerwig character, and also provides some interesting thoughts on the ever-brewing Mommy Wars.

Maggie is in her early 30s, settled and accomplished as an administrator in the arts program of a New York City college that remains unnamed. (It’s obviously NYU, my alma mater, as evidenced by the locations, especially Washington Square Park; I assume there was a legal reason for remaining coy.)

She’s awesome at most everything, except romance, which is why as the story opens she’s decided to get pregnant using a donor. The male half of her best friend couple, Tony (Bill Hader) and Felicia (Maya Rudolph), offers his sperm, but she’s decided to obtain it from some guy from college -- whose name is Guy (Travis Fimmel) -- who used to be a promising mathematician but is now a crunchy type selling organic pickles.

Meanwhile, Maggie falls hard for John (Ethan Hawke), a slightly older adjunct professor who’s married with two kids. He’s a rock star in his field, fictocritical anthropology, which basically means he can write about whatever wants and receive an academic stipend for it. Currently he’s trying to write a novel, and escape the clutches of his controlling wife, Georgette.

Just as Maggie is about to culminate the, uh, transaction with Guy, John shows up on her doorstep and professes his love. Flash to 18 months later, and now she is ensconced as the mother of an adorable little girl, as well as playing den mother to John, still working on that novel, as well as his kids. Mina Sundwall plays the knowing, critical teenager.

Georgette turns up, played by Julianne Moore, after having written a book about the dissolution of her marriage, Maggie seeks her out, and the two spark up an unlikely friendship. She’s a strange, cold woman of vague Nordic background, also an academic, who tries to dominate every interaction she has. Moore plays her rather broadly, which is how Georgette is written, but the performance could’ve benefited from more shading.

Maggie realizes that, behind her veil of Valkyrie-like power, Georgette is vulnerable and still loves John. This also forces Maggie to admit that she is miserable with him. So she hatches a scheme to get her husband to leave her for his ex-wife.

Hawke is terrific as John, a generally decent guy whose worst instincts come out when he’s allowed to lean on someone else for everything, instead of being the lean-ee.

Ultimately it’s Gerwig’s show, though, and she continues to demonstrate why she’s one of the best actresses her generation. Maggie may be just as fictional as Murphy Brown was, but this movie gives us a funny, nuanced look at the choices and expectations Millennial women face.