Review: "Stowaway"

 

 

There’s a particular kind of movie, often a science fiction film, that has percolated up. The technological and situational challenges drive the emotional reactions, as astronauts or other extraordinary humans try to prevent catastrophic events with limited resources, time and capabilities.

“Apollo 13” is one of the earliest of this sort, and “Gravity,” “The Martian” and now “Stowaway” are its inheritors. They’re really procedurals in space -- trying to painstakingly assemble the pieces to the answer puzzle while certain mayhem is coming down at them, perhaps not imminently but inexorably.

(In a way, you could even argue the last two Avengers movies were space procedurals, with the focus on finding or hiding Infinity Stones to prevent the existential threat, represented as Thanos.)

Like the others, “Stowaway” is not long on characterization. We learn enough about the people we’re watching to understand where they come from and what motivates them, but not a lot of other background.

For example, star Anna Kendrick plays Zoe Levenson, who we know is 1) a doctor, who 2) went to Yale, and 3) initially applied to the Hyperion space program as a joke, and 4) that’s about it. The plot is what moves things along, with the actors finding little spaces to bring out the humanity. Kendrick gives her a sort of quiet, plucky charm -- geek girl as heroine.

Similarly, Toni Collette plays the commander of this mission to a future Mars colony, though I don’t think we ever even hear her name. (The credits give it as Marina Barnett.) She’s a veteran leading her third and last mission and is focused on tamping down miscues. Daniel Dae Kim is David Kim, a botanist who is married and follows the commander’s lead unquestioningly, until…

Michael Adams (Shamier Anderson) is the “until,” a launch engineer who somehow passed out on the ship before blastoff and was never detected. The problem is they only have enough stuff on board for three people, not four, and the CO2 exchanger thingamajig he was caught behind was damaged, so they’re all going to asphyxiate a few weeks before reaching Mars unless Michael… goes away.

The dilemma: find a way to fix the problem so everyone can live, or present Michael with the option of killing himself to save the crew.

Now, it seems pretty implausible that a NASA-like organization could misplace an entire person, what with their mile-long checklists and tracking devices and so on. But director Joe Penna, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ryan Morrison, focuses on the problem and brushes past how it was created.

There’s even a suggestion that maybe Michael’s stowaway status was not entirely accidental. He’s an aspiring astronaut himself, so is it possible he manipulated events to jump ahead of the line? There’s also the hint of attraction between him and Zoe, or at least a bond, so she pushes back against the commander’s plan to do away with him.

“Stowaway” has lots of potential story threads to pursue. For example, Michael is Black and blue-collar, whereas the crew is white and Asian and Ivy League. I kept waiting for some of the new awokening over racial justice to come to the fore -- after all, why should Michael be the one who has to sacrifice himself? Why is his life instantly assigned as less valuable than the others?

Other options present themselves, but every day that goes by with Michael breathing air leaves less margin of error for a solution to present itself. And that’s the sweet spot where the movie gradually, skillfully builds suspense.

One of the choices the filmmakers made that I really liked is for the audience not to witness any of the usual back-and-forth conversations with mission control. We just hear a little squawking over earpieces, so we have to make sense from just one side of the conversation. This heightens the claustrophobic feeling the crew is utterly alone, and their choices and mettle will decide their fate.

“Stowaway” isn’t an ‘exciting’ movie in the traditional sense. There aren’t a lot of action scenes, explosions, lasers, that kind stuff. Most of it is just people inside a cramped spaceship, dealing with impossible scenarios and agonizing over the consequences of their choices.

What would you do in such circumstances? And that’s why we watch.

 

Review: "Trolls World Tour"

 "That was amazingly better than the first one."
                                                --Joel Lloyd, 9

So sayeth the target audience for "Trolls World Tour," the sequel to the 2016 animation hit based on those scary-cute dolls with neon hair and, apparently, golden singing pipes.

Back then I recognized "Trolls" for what it was -- craftily-made entertainment that parents would find tolerable but designed to dump straight into the bloodstream of their offspring like some beat-driven pharmacological candy. A mite cynical, mayhaps, but undeniably skillfully executed.

So here's the next one, and truth be told I actually dug it more than the first.

The song playlist is maybe not quite as good but the story's actually got a little meat on the bone, as Poppy (voice of Anna Kendrick), Branch (Justin Timberlake) and the rest of the troll popstars find out the world -- both musically and otherwise -- is a lot bigger and more complicated than they took it for.

It turns out the trolls of the original movie are merely one-sixth of the species, representing the pop music segment in a spectrum that's been divided up by genre. The others are rock, funk, classical, country and techno. According to the long-ago-but-just-rediscovered lore, the troll tribes went their separate ways long ago because of their musical differences, each taking with them one magical string from the mythological harp encompassing all things tuneful.

Now I now what you're saying: how does techno qualify as part of a proposed hexad representing all music? Does jazz fall under rock or funk or even classical? And where's a capella? Or folk? Or swingtime? Or punkabilly?

(Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it.)

Don't worry, the filmmakers -- director Walt Dohrn and a small army of screenwriters too lengthsome to list -- get around to recognizing that their framework involves a whole lotta square-peg-pushin' into them proverbial round holes.

My favorite acknowledgement of this is the deployment of four sets of bounty hunters just as diverse as the rogues' gallery of industry colleagues from "The Empire Strikes Back." These include smooth jazz, K-pop, yodeling and reggaeton, marginalized outcasts each vying for their own (very) little piece of real estate in the troll world.

It seems the queen of rock, Barb (?!?), voiced by Rachel Bloom, is determined to take over all the other troll countries, steal their magical strings and weave them onto her mighty guitar to strum the Ultimate Power Chord, which will instantaneously remake the troll universe in something akin to Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet, though less mass genocide-y, this being a PG-rated kids' movie.

Like Poppy, Barb has recently risen to the throne of her monarchy, similarly inheriting her mantle from an over-the-hill dad. Hers is voiced by Ozzy Osborne, riding a motorized wheelchair decked out in leather and spikes. He needs a little help with making the devil's horns gesture these days, rebellion and agedness making poor companions. She's not truly evil, just misguided, though it turns out Poppy is, too.

There's some stuff about Branch wanting to take things to the next level romantically, which must be neck rubs or something, since they don't even get a closing-shot kiss. Trolls are all into hugs and friendship but are quite conspicuously chaste, even being revealed to reproduce asexually through their bountiful wellspring of hair.

Kelly Clarkson provides the voice of the country & western queen, with a Dolly Parton 'do and a mournful wail upon her lips. George Clinton and Mary J. Blige head up the funk realm, which has Wakanda-like technological superiority over the other trolls, cruising about in their spaceship.

The leaders for techo and classical are one-noters, quickly written off into the background.

Sam Rockwell turns up as Hickory, a derring-do man of mystery from the country side who breaks Poppy and Branch out of jail. He also provides a romantic threat, what with his rust-colored jaw scruff and even chest hair, which by troll standards makes him a 6th-grader amongst kindergartners.

He also has four horse-like legs, which might seem unusual except that the funktown inhabits are quadrupeds as well, though theirs are more camel-like. The technos are actually underwater creatures with fins, though this somehow gets lost during the big togetherness concert at the end, where all differences are recognized and celebrated.

Like the original, "Trolls World Tour" is colorful, bright (almost blindingly), fast-paced and keeps a light touch. There's a fairly sophisticated message inside this sugary confection, which is that being different isn't bad, unless we try to impose our preferences on others, or fool ourselves into thinking our culture doesn't bleed into others and vice-versa.

It'll mostly go over the heads of the kiddos, but grownups will be there to catch it, and maybe appreciate a toss with a little more zip on it.

P.S. In a world gone suddenly topsy-turvy, ain't it nice to have one high-profile flick eschew the pack and still release on the same date it was supposed to, even if it's in your living room? I for one hope the theatrical model returns from its slumber, but one way or the other movies will always be there for us, if we are for them.

Review: "A Simple Favor"

"A Simple Favor" is not a particularly good film, but it is an interesting one. Sometimes it's better to to be mediocre and interesting than decently unoriginal.

At first I thought this was going to be a romcom. Anna Kendrick plays a mommy vlogger who becomes ensorceled with a beautiful, bitchy mother of one of her son's 1st grade classmates, played by Blake Lively. I figured it would be an odd couple romp as they bond while dealing with various man issues.

There is indeed bonding and romantic entanglements, but they're a sideshow to what is essentially a comedy whodunit.

Tonally, this is a brash outlier movie. Coming from director Paul Feig ("Bridesmaids," "Spy), it appears at first blush to be a broad R-rated comedy with the ladies spouting a lot of filthy talk. I haven't read the book it's based on, though it's been compared to "Gone Girl" and "The Girl on the Train" -- pretty much the polar opposite of funny.

But screenwriter Jessica Sharzer, adapting the novel by Darcey Bell, layers in plenty of laughs even as she introduces film noir elements as the two women trade roles as admirer and admired, pursuer and pursued. There are a couple of head-whipping plot twists, though they aren't hard to guess if you've been paying attention.

It starts out fun and flirty, then turns darker, and then darker still, though there are still laughs spliced in between the doom and gloom.

Kendrick plays Stephanie Smothers, a widowed single mom to adorable Miles (Joshua Satine) who makes helpful videos aimed at other mothers. She's sort of a downmarket Martha Stewart, living in quaint (fictional) Warfield, Conn., a New York City exurb. The other moms of their class see her as this busy bee of energy, friendly to everyone but close to no one.

Then she meets the mom of Miles' pal Nicky (Ian Ho), the class troublemaker. Emily Nelson (Lively) is everything Stephanie is not -- tall, flawless, rich, self-confident, careerist and seemingly indifferent to the joys of motherhood. She wears swank suits with vest pocket chains, fedora hats, ladybug shoes and a permanent smirk.

After some play dates and lots of gin martinis, they're soon fast friends. Stephanie is deferential and apologetic, and Emily acts as her muse and mentor to live larger. Emily is like a caricature of feminism: controlling, manipulative, arrogant. We would hope Stephanie would be smart enough to see through her facade to the depth of her problems, but then we wouldn't have a movie.

Without giving too much away, suffice it to say that Emily suddenly disappears after leaving Nicky with Stephanie. Her husband, Sean (Henry Golding), a once-promising writer, was away in London and wasn't aware she vamoosed. Her posh clothing designer boss (Rupert Friend) though she was on a business trip in Miami.

Soon the police are brought in, Stephanie's vlog becomes a hit when she starts doing updates on Emily's case in between making friendship bracelets, and the web of suspicions quickly spreads.

There was a point about two-thirds of the way through the movie where I was literally scratching my head, wondering what the heck was going on and where the film was heading. It felt schizophrenic and weird. But it was also on some level enervating to watch a movie that keeps throwing wild haymakers at you. Many of them don't land, but some do.

I can't exactly recommend "A Simple Favor." But it's a sporadically entertaining flick that has something to say about the state of the mommy wars.

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. 

Video review: "Trolls"

First reaction to “Trolls”: If this movie is based on those creepy neon-haired dolls, why don’t they look like them? The bodies and hair are similar, but the faces are fuzzy rather than fleshy, and the eyes don’t resemble depthless pools of death. (Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)

Second reaction: Boy, they sure didn’t try very hard to hold the interest of parents here, did they? It’s all boingy action, bright colors and solving-our-problems-through-singing.

Third reaction: Zzzzzzzz…

“Trolls” is a great fit for video, because you can set the kiddies up on the couch, press “play” and enjoy 92 minutes of bliss while you go into the next room and do something else. Certainly, you won’t want to stick around for the movie, an unambitious romp that’s barely a step up from cable TV animated shows.

Anna Kendrick voices Princess Poppy, the heroine of the Troll tribe, who live for singing, dancing and hugs. Their long-vanquished oppressors, the loathsome and toothsome Bergens, used to eat them to bring some small measure of joy into their dreary lives. But since Poppy’s father led a great escape 20 years earlier, it’s been one nonstop party with her as queen bee.

Their only real killjoy is Branch (Justin Timberlake), the resident mopey troll who refuses to sing and prepares for the return of the Bergens. Of course this comes to pass, as he reluctantly joins up with Poppy and her crew to save the day.

The journey into Bergentown introduces three other important characters: the young, inexperienced but not black-hearted King Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse); Bridget (Zooey Deschanel), the drab scullery maid who’s secretly in love with the monarch; and Chef (Christine Baranski), the gender-bending villain who used to prepare the troll dishes, and will do anything for a return to the kitchen seat of power.

Poppy helps Bridget get her bling on to catch the king’s eye in exchange for assisting with their rescue mission. It doesn’t take imagination to guess that love will save the day, Branch will get his groove back and this all wraps up with a massive Troll/Bergen dance party.

My kids absolutely love this movie. I received a DVD copy in December for awards voting, and I’d be embarrassed to tell you how many times they’ve seen it since then. (If any social workers ask, it’s three at the most.)

However, I’ve gotten a lot of chores done during that time, so I would consider a copy of “Trolls” to be a very wise investment -- provided you don’t make the mistake of watching it yourself.

As you might guess, the bonus features are geared toward the wee ones, and are pretty plentiful. The DVD includes deleted scenes plus featurettes on the production design and animation, a tour of Troll Village and the process for creating Poppy’s treasured scrapbooks.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray and you add more featurettes, including a look at Branch’s bunker and a debate between Branch and Poppy on important topics of the day. The highlight is a Party Mode, an interactive feature that amps up the singing and dancing, and a “conTROLL” that queues on-screen fun moments.

Movie:

 for kids

for adults 



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Video review: "The Accountant"

“The Accountant” is an entertaining film, but it could have been much more. It’s about a math whiz who has autism and has turned into some sort of “super spy CPA” type who cooks the books and then kills the bad guys. My best take on it is that star Ben Affleck was jealous of his buddy Matt Damon’s two most pivotal roles, Jason Bourne and Will Hunting, and decided to combine them into one movie.

The result is part character study, part romance, and a lot spy action that gradually devolves into more or a less comedy, with our hero offing villains and then tossing off quips. It doesn’t really all fit together, but there are some nice pieces to the equation.

Christian Wolff was a kid whose genius and social disability were both plain to see. Raised by a stern military dad and beset with tragedy, he’s turned into this mystery figure who runs a one-man accounting shop in a crummy strip mall, doing taxes for working class folks. On the side, though, he runs the numbers for all sorts of international bad guys, from the mafia to drug cartels.

On the hunt is Treasury agent Ray King (J.K. Simmons), who wants to bust the legendary shadow man before he’s forced to hang up his badge in a few months. Jeffrey Tambor plays another father figure, who schooled Christian on accounting while they were in prison together.

Providing the cute-n-spunky ingredient is Anna Kendrick as Dana, a junior accountant at a company that makes robotic limbs. She thinks she’s uncovered some malfeasance the CEO (John Lithgow) doesn’t know about, so Christian is brought in to work his magic. Soon the young CPAs are auditing each other’s bedsheets.

From there, things get weirder and weirder, with black ops types showing up (Jon Bernthal among them) to make dark threats and stage the deaths of minor characters. Director Gavin O’Connor and screenwriter Bill Dubuque let things slide further and further afield from the somber first half, until the movie virtually becomes a laugh riot -- sometimes intentional, sometimes not.

“The Accountant” isn’t a bad movie, it just forgets itself. In trying too hard to be both Jason and Will, Christian wanders into absurdity. It’s an entertaining train wreck, but still a mess.

Bonus features are so-so, and are limited to three making-of documentary shorts: “Inside the Man,” “Behavior Science” and “The Accountant in Action.”

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Video review: "The Hollars"

John Krasinski’s second feature film as a director and star isn’t terribly ambitious, but it gathers together a truly wonderful cast and gives them interesting things to say and do. Margo Martindale and Richard Jenkins both fall into that tiniest category of actors I think of as “people I would pay to read my medicine bottles.” They’re always distinctive and alive.

Toss in Anna Kendrick, Sharlto Copley, Charlize Day, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Krasinski himself, and that’s enough reason to choose “The Hollars” for a home viewing right there.

Krasinski plays John Hollar, a typical arrested-development sort who can’t get his career or personal life out of first gear. He’s got an amazing girlfriend (Kendrick) who’s pregnant with his baby, but he hasn’t put a ring on it.

When family matriarch/rock Sally (Martindale) falls ill, dad Don (Jenkins) more or less dissolves into a puddle, while wayward son Ron (Copley) is dealing with his own issues, losing both his job and his family. Meanwhile, the Hollar family business is going under.

So John returns to a scene of chaos and resentment, as all these sharp divides must be spackled together with love and trust.

Everything goes exactly as you’d expect. Most of the time I dislike movies that are completely predictable. But “The Hollars” has genuine heart and some snappy dialogue courtesy of script man Jim Strouse.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you won’t get even a hint of any real surprises. But I doubt anyone who watches this film will consider it time ill spent.

Bonus features are decent. Krasinski and Martindale team up for a feature length commentary track, and there’s also a Q&A with the two plus Kendrick from the LA Film Festival. It also comes with two featurettes: “Persistent Vision: Margo Martindale” and “The Family Trust: Inside The Hollars.”

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Review: "Trolls"

“Trolls” is bright, colorful, snappy and a chore to sit through. It’s one of those animated films crafted exclusively for little kids, who will enjoy it immensely, while anyone who counts their age in double digits will find themselves tapping their foot… and not necessarily to the pop tunes sung by the neon-haired little critters.

Yes, this is a musical based on the ubiquitous troll dolls, which are now owned by DreamWorks Animation. They tapped Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake to voice the main characters, and Timberlake also wrote a song and executive produced the music, which is a mix of modern beats and vintage pop hits.

The story seems like the barest contrivance wrapped around the talent.

Director Mike Mitchell and co-director Walt Dohrn, along with script men Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, set out with a simple idea in mind: assault the audience with cuteness. Every time we think the movie’s going to wander into a dark area, it’s quickly shoved back into the light by a song or spray of goofiness.

It’s almost like the film is bipolar; it can’t stand to be glum for even a moment.

Certainly that is the contrast between Princess Poppy (Kendrick), the pink-haired leader of the trolls, and Branch (Timberlake), the tribe’s resident Debbie Downer. He’s the only troll who has muted tones to his skin and hair, and eschews the singing, dancing and hugging -- every hour; they set their clocks by it -- that comprise troll culture.

Twenty years ago the trolls were the captives of the Bergens, nasty giant creatures who hate their lives and each other, and everything. One day of the Bergen calendar is set aside for happiness, Trollstice, when they get to eat trolls and know joy. But the brave troll king (Jeffrey Tambor) led a mass escape, and since then it’s been one long party.

The Bergens aren’t too happy about it, especially Chef (Christine Baranski), who prepared the troll meal and enjoyed wielding power. He manages to capture a handful of trolls after Poppy organizes an ill-advised party complete with fireworks, so she and Branch undertake a rescue mission.

The trolls look pretty much like the toys, though without those weird lifeless eyes. Their hair has magical properties -- Poppy is the best hair twirler, able to grab stuff and even create shapes with her ‘do. The supporting characters include twins whose hair is connected, a big friendly fella, one who looks like a troll lama and a silver guy who is always covered in glitter and is naked.

They make it to Bergentown, where things take a (not terribly) unexpected turn. The young Bergen king, Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), is thrilled about finally getting his first taste of troll. Meanwhile, the scullery maid, Bridget (Zooey Deschanel), secretly pines for him and enlists the trolls’ help in capturing the heart of her rotund little Romeo.

(Odd aside: the Bergens look a lot like the Boxtrolls from the much better film from a couple years ago.)

It all falls into place with a sense of inevitability. The Bergens will learn you don’t need to eat a sentient being to find happiness, and the mopey Branch -- who refuses to sing -- will eventually find his voice, and his true hue.

“Trolls” isn’t a bad movie -- just not a very ambitious one. Take away the big names and top-drawer animation, and it’s not much of a step up from what you’d see while channel surfing past Disney Junior or Nick Jr.

Review: "The Accountant"

 There’s a lot of things to like about “The Accountant,” but tonally the film is a sloppy, gloppy mess.

It starts out as a serious character examination of a high-functioning autistic man played by Ben Affleck who works as an accountant for some very bad people -- terrorists, drug cartels, repressive regimes, etc. Then he quickly morphs into a Jason Bourne-like character who can bullseye people a mile away and chop-socky them to death up close.

It begins on a very somber note, and by the end has more or less turned into a full-out action/comedy. Somewhere in here is a romance that gets dropped down a well, and a redemptive tale of a shiftless bureaucrat who found his calling late in life.

Director Gavin O’Connor (“Warrior”) and script man Bill Dubuque gather an interesting cast of characters and story elements, but can’t assemble them into a coherent piece. Still, if you look at it purely as popcorn entertainment, there’s a lot of assets in the ledger.

The story opens with Christian Wolff as a kid (played by Seth Lee), prone to fits and cut off from the rest of the world. But he’s got brilliance beneath the behavior, as evidenced by his ability to put together a huge puzzle in minutes -- with the picture facing upside down -- while waiting to talk to a therapist. His father (Robert C. Treveiler) is a stern Army man, and gives him a brutal upbringing of tough love and combat training so he can survive.

“You’re different. Sooner or later, different scares people,” Dad instructs.

Now in his late 30s or so, Christian is a CPA with a dingy one-man practice, ZZZ Accounting, south of Chicago. Affleck does a wonderful bit of technical acting, showing us all of his quirks and obsessions. He blows on his fingers before starting a new task, and becomes distracted to the point of conniption if interrupted before he’s finished.

He does tax returns and such for farmers and the small storefronts around his in the strip mall. But on the side he takes high-dollar gigs from disreputable types, finding out who’s been skimming in operations like the drug lords who, as one law enforcement type puts it, “count their money by weighing semis full of cash.”

That LEO is Ray King (J.K. Simmons), a legendary Treasury agent with lots of huge busts to his name. He’s got a few months until forced retirement, and is determined to spend that time tracking down this ghost accountant. He recruits a young analyst with a troublesome past (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) as his paladin. She learns about a troubled young man who was in and out of institutions, including a federal prison stint where he learned at the knee of an elderly mafia numbers man (Jeffrey Tambor).

Now Christian has been recruited to check out a prominent firm that makes robotic limbs for amputees, led by a visionary leader (John Lithgow) who’s not so good with numbers. There Christian meets Dana, an adorably dorky company accountant who first found the discrepancy. They negotiate a delicate little dance, with her trying to figure out this puzzle of a man and him trying to break through decades of imposed discipline.

(Beautiful, smart and vibrant women are often attracted to awkward, socially clumsy men in the movies – which, completely coincidentally, tend to be written by awkward, socially clumsy men.)

Things go bad when a team of assassins (led by Jon Bernthal) come after Dana and Christian. He quickly makes short work of them, and the pair are in the wind.

Things are more or less fine to this point, but then the film keeps tipping over into unexpectedly funny moments that break the mood. Some are obviously intentional, such as Affleck’s affectless responses to Kendrick’s emotional outbursts. But the compounding effect is to undermine the tense atmosphere the movie has worked so hard for.

The plotting is rather obvious -- if you can’t figure out who’s the person pushing all the buttons, or the nature of the third act’s “big surprise” a long way off, you haven’t been paying much attention.

If “The Accountant” had just presented itself as a straightforward action/drama -- “Superspy CPA” -- then we could just sit back and enjoy it for its own sake. By seeking higher ground, and then settling for cheaper thrills, it’s only marginally worth an investment.

Review: "The Hollars"

“You won’t know till you get there that you’re OK.”
--Sally Hollar

On points for originality, “The Hollars” scores a great big goose egg. It’s an overly familiar recitation of the Going Home dramedy, in which a wayward adult returns to their childhood home because of some kind of family crisis and has to face a lot of old fears and doubts, heaped on top of some new ones.

But this cast is just amazing: Margo Martindale, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Sharlto Copley, Charlie Day, Mary Elizabeth Winstead. And, of course, John Krasinski (“The Office”), who stars, produces as well as directing his second feature film.

It’s a warm-hearted story that delivers exactly what you expect, yet never has a false moment or trips over any pretensions.

This movie is a big ol’ slice of pecan pie. The taste is like a memory etched into your mind, yet you can’t help finding yourself asking for more. This is the rare movie I actually wished was a bit longer.

John Hollar (Krasinski) lives in New York City and labors in misery as a graphic artist for an advertising firm. He’s got an amazing girlfriend, Rebecca (Anna Kendrick), who’s very pregnant with their child. But he hasn’t put a ring on it, and obviously has cold feet about the sudden push into real adulthood.

Back home things aren’t much happier. (The exact location of the Hollar homestead isn’t specified, but I’d guess somewhere small-town Midwest.)

The father, Don (Richard Jenkins), projects outward stoicism concealing a jumpy bundle of nerves. The family business is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Oldest son Ron (Sharlto Copley) is the resident screw-up; he’s back living in his parents’ basement after being fired by his boss -- that would be his dad -- and is long divorced. He’s taken to spying on the house where his ex-wife and daughters live.

Margo Martindale is Sally, the matriarch and spiritual center of the clan. Don even calls her “Chief,” tacitly acknowledging her prominence. As the story opens she collapses in the bathroom, which at first Don dismisses as a prank. He’s anything but mean-spirited; he’s just rested on that Rock of Gibraltar so long he just assumes Sally is immortal. But tests reveal a large brain tumor.

John returns home, and it’s apparent he was disconnected from his family long before he left. But his momma treats him with patience, knowing the sheep has to wander back to the herd on its own rather than being led. She offers opinions, gives comfort and accept some, too. Martindale is just a wondrous performer, and projects the wave of fear Sally is experiencing underneath a tough game face.

“I like Rebecca,” she tells John. “She’s pushy. Men need to be pushed.”

Rebecca herself soon arrives too, due in part to some tension with an old girlfriend of John’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is now married to Sally’s nurse, Jason (the always acerbic Charlie Day). We think it’s going to turn into a love triangle, but the third leg is not the one we expect.

The screenplay by Jim Strouse stays firmly in the groove of laughing-while-crying melodrama, decidedly sentimental without ever wallowing into sappy. There are a lot of great one-liners – such as Sally, fretting over having to have her head shaved for surgery, predicting she’ll “look like Rod Steiger.”

This is the sort of movie that rises and falls on the strength of its cast, and it’s got a doozy. There’s so much heart in the Hollars; watching a film about them is like a warm, wet hug.

Video review: "End of Watch"

File “End of Watch” under the list of best movies of 2012 that you probably haven’t seen … or maybe even heard of.

This terrific, gritty, and surprisingly funny portrait of a pair of LAPD officers patrolling South-Central Los Angeles is one of the best cop dramas in recent memory. Michael Peña and Jake Gyllenhaal play Mike and Brian, a pair of young cowboys who, as one boasts “get into more capers in a single deployment shift than most cops do in their entire career.”

Writer/director David Ayer fills his movie with lots of harrowing scenes of fistfights, gunplay and other brutality. Yet it’s the humanity of the relationship between these two guys that breathes life into the film. They crack jokes on each other, make fun of their ethnic heritage, and exchange advice about the women in their lives.

But when the gangbangers bring the heat, they instantly shift into soldier mode, becoming one mind with two guns. Ayer often films from a first-person perspective down the barrel of a pistol, putting the audience right in the thick of it.

America Ferrera, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Martinez, David Harbour and Frank Grillo make up an outstanding supporting cast as the fellow cops and family members who have to deal with the carnage left behind in the destructive duo’s wake.

The humor may strike some viewers as out of place, but the cast and crew show how it’s just part of their defense mechanism the cops use to keep from going crazy. Some of the scenes they encounter are just horrendous and traumatizing. Cutting up is how they get by.

But don’t mistake all the laughing for a lack of sobriety. “End of Watch” is a serious examination of life on the thin blue line in one of the toughest beats in America. Especially revealing is a scene after the pair have been given awards for pulling kids out of a fire, and Brian asks Mike, “Do you feel like a hero?” The answer may surprise you.

Don’t miss this one.

Extra features, which are identical for Blu-ray and DVD editions, are a bit underwhelming. Director Ayer provides a feature-length commentary. Plus there are several deleted scenes, and a handful of rather short making-of featurettes.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars

Review: "What to Expect When You're Expecting"

Unless you're pretty slow on the uptake, you already know that "What to Expect When You're Expecting" bears little relation to the self-help book aimed at educating pregnant women about the little darlings growing in their bellies.

In fact, it's such a deliberate departure, one wonders why the producers insisted on keeping the title, other than nefarious purposes to lure in millions of moms and mama wannabes, who don't really require much luring for bubbly romantic comedies. Of course, this is the same industry that is also this week releasing a movie based on a board game about sinking military naval vessels, so starting off assuming the worst is probably going to work out pretty well.

There is no advice to be contained in the movie version of "WTEWYE," which is what I will call it henceforth, since I don't feel like typing it all, plus it seems like that would come out "wha-TOO-wee," which is good aural representation of how I felt about it.

Directed by Kirk Jones from a script by Shauna Cross and Heather Hache, "WTEWYE" feels like it was cooked up in a Hollywood laboratory ruled by poll-testing tubes and focus group beakers. Despite this, there actually are a few moments that shine.

The story takes a disparate group of five women, loosely interconnected and located mostly in Atlanta, who learn they're to become mothers right around the same time. There are also their male counterparts, plus friends, relatives, various hangers-on and a walk-on by some unrelated fathers known simply as The Dudes Group (more on them in a bit).

Now, that is a whole heapin' lot of characters to keep straight, let alone make them believable and identifiable. The result is that one couple's story works so well that I was annoyed whenever the movie focuses elsewhere, two other orbits of pregnancy feel forced and faked, another is really just a secondary story to the first one, and the last one has no purpose for even existing.

A quick run-down:

 Jules (Cameron Diaz) is a celebrity fitness trainer who just won a "Dancing with the Stars"-type reality show and fell in love with her gorgeous dancer to boot. They're rich, famous and busy, and find there's not much they truly agree upon.

Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) runs a store called The Breast Choice devoted to everything about having a baby, but she and her hubby Gary (Ben Falcone) have had trouble conceiving on their own.

Gary's dad Ramsey (Dennis Quaid), a retired race car driver, knocks up his second wife with twins. She's younger than Gary, a plastic-y Barbie type who makes pregnancy look like a breeze.

Holly (Jennifer Lopez) and Alex (Rodrigo Santoro) can't get pregnant, so they look to adopt a baby from Ethiopia. Alex is getting cold feet, which gives Holly the jitters.

The last couple is Rosie (Anna Kendrick) and Marco (Chace Crawford), early-20s owners of competing food trucks and recovering from a high-school split. They get back together for a one-nighter, she gets knocked up, and then they have a lot of Very Important discussions to share.

I genuinely enjoyed the Wendy/Gary storyline, with Banks getting some of the best lines and scenes as a woman who's spent her adult life pushing the motherhood-is-magic theme, only to find it's more about cankles and hemorrhoids. "I didn't get 'The Glow,' I just got bacne."

The one with the young kids is given the shortest shrift, which is OK since it feels like it was only included to rope in a certain demographic.

The Dudes, a club for dads to hang out with their kids, are also worth a laugh or two, with their mantra of total acceptance of each other's substandard parenting. But their sequences bring the movie to a dead stop.

I wasn't expecting much from "WTEWYE," but audiences certainly deserved more than this.
1.5 stars out of four

Review: "50/50"

The characters and dialogue in "50/50" are so cool and hip and accessible, the movie almost succeeds in making us forget we've seen this story a dozen times before.

It's the tale of a young guy who comes down with a very scary form of cancer -- so scary, even other cancer patients have never heard of it. As one fellow patient advises, the more syllables a disease has, the worse it is.

Because it has an indie rock soundtrack and stars Gen-Y favorites Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick and Bryce Dallas Howard, "50/50" has a witty, funny/sad vibe. But ultimately, it's another variation on the old laughing-through-the-tears shtick, in which monumental life challenges bring on the warm fuzzies, and the laughs.

The film was reportedly based on a real-life event involving a friend of Rogen, Will Reiser, who wrote the screenplay based loosely on his own bout with cancer. Rogen co-stars and is one of the producers, and Jonathan Levine directs with loose, jazzy style that gives most of the scenes a comfortable, lived-in feel.

Adam (Gordon-Levitt) is a 27-year-old producer for the NPR affiliate in Seattle, slavishly working on a project about a remote volcano his boss could care less about. That's sort of Adam's M.O. -- he's a guy who sticks himself in a corner, keeps low expectations and is content to be the wingman for Kyle (Rogen), his garrulous best friend who's always looking to get laid, all the time.

A pain in his back turns out to be spinal cancer, as his doctor lays out for him with an appalling lack of human warmth, spouting a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo into a voice recorder rather than talking to the man in front of him.

I happen to think Gordon-Levitt's one of the best actors of his generation, and he doesn't disappoint here, showing us the edges of Adam's interior. Adam has become very good at fooling others into thinking he's a happy person -- no one has fallen for it harder than himself.

His girlfriend, Rachael, is an artsy type played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who promises to stick by Adam, but everyone, including Rachael, secretly doubts she's up to the challenge. She only has one drawer's worth of her stuff at Adam's house, and we sense this mirrors her emotional investment in their relationship.

Kyle, meanwhile, keeps taking Adam out to drink and party, and eggs him into using his newly bald head and sad story to get women to sleep with him. (In the world that exists only in the minds of screenwriters, this actually works.)

"No one wants to (score with) me," Adam protests, "I look like Voldemort."

Some of the best scenes are at Adam's chemotherapy sessions, where he cozies up to the regulars. In this tiny community, one's affliction is announced like a vocation: "Alan, stage three lymphoma." "Mitch, metastatic prostate cancer." Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer quietly dazzle as a pair who have moved beyond fretting about letting their disease define them.

The X factor is Anna Kendrick as Katherine, the medical student who takes on Adam in therapy sessions. Adam, who is used to always being the youngest person in any room, is put off being administered to by someone even younger than he. She's so young, Katherine doesn't even get his Doogie Howser jokes.

Their relationship develops in time, though, and it doesn't take long to figure out they wish they'd met in other circumstances. I enjoyed the authenticity of Kendrick's performance as a serious young woman who's still figuring out her professional and personal boundaries. There is no doubt she will turn out to be a better, more caring doctor than the lunkhead who blurted out the news about Adam's cancer.

I enjoyed this movie, though admittedly I'm a sucker for a good weepy/funny dramedy. I just want Rogen, Reiser, Levine and the gang to know that even though I'm giving their flick a thumbs-up, I see through their ruse. This is "Terms of Endearment" with a heavy ladle of testosterone and a smirk.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World"

"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is like the entirety of American youth culture crammed into a single package: It's about love, alienation, video games, comic books, chord-grinding indie/punk rock, texting, dead-end jobs and evil ex-boyfriends.

Mostly, video games and ex-boyfriends.

Michael Cera, Generation Y's poster boy of angst-y charm, plays Scott Pilgrim, an itinerant bass player with a Toronto band called Sex Bob-omb.

Say it out loud and fast and the band's name, if not exactly making sense, at least becomes a cool, quirky statement. You could say the same about the movie.

Scott's mission: He must defeat the seven ex-boyfriends of Ramona Flowers, his new-new girlfriend. (As opposed to his old-new girlfriend, Knives Chau. In other words, she's his ex, but doesn't know it yet.)

Each of the battles is played out as an arcade-style brawl of superpowers, with the scrawny Scott able to leap and punch like the avatars of the video games he plays. Why he's suddenly able to summon these abilities for the fights with Ramona's exes, but is an everyday schmo otherwise, is a subject never broached.

Other people can also perform amazing feats when called upon, which makes a little more sense, in the sense that it doesn't. As near as I can figure, it's like everybody in the movie's universe can hit a button on their personal game controller and transform into a super-hero, while never leaving their alter-ego behind.

Other people in this world -- which is populated entirely by those under age 30 -- accept these battles as a matter of course and settle in to spectate, even though they tend to interrupt the concerts and dance clubs they were attending.

I enjoyed myself watching "Scott Pilgrim," at times immensely so. But I wonder if anyone who's not intimately tapped into its peculiar vibe, built largely around the Mario Bros. oeuvre, is going to embrace (or even understand) the film.

(For example, if right now you're thinking Mario Bros. refers to a pizza chain run by siblings, then this movie is not for you.)

Cera has become the unlikeliest movie star -- a movie star being different from a film actor in that while an actor plays many different roles, a star always plays himself. In Cera's case, he's a mumbling, self-doubting drink of water who finds his resolve when the girl of his dreams appears.

His pursuit of Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who favorably recalls a young Winona Ryder) is fumbling and pathetic, but inexplicably successful. Soon he and the pink-haired (for now) Ramona are an item, which is destined to put a damper on the bubbly mood of Knives (Ellen Wong).

The story -- the screenplay is by Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright, who also directed, based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley -- is framed around the ex-boyfriend fights. Each one has its own loopy rules and energy, and pop-up messages appear just like in a video game to let us know when people have gained new abilities or earned an extra life (never hurts to have one of those).

The boyfriends tend to be played by recognizable actors like Chris Evans and Brandon Routh (both of whom also moonlight in other movies as super-heroes -- Captain America and Superman, respectively).

There's no real danger to the action, of course -- if you die in an arcade game, you can always drop in another quarter to continue. (I say "quarter" figuratively, since it's been awhile ... what do those things cost now, like a buck-fifty?)

"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" doesn't really add up to much more than high score on a screen. But it achieves it with a fresh, brash style that demands, "Are you really cool enough to like this movie?"

3 stars out of four

Interview: Jason Reitman

Jason Reitman wears a gray skullcap and red plaid shirt. Together with a week's worth of dark stubble and an unlined, sharp-angled face framing penetrating eyes, he could easily pass as a slightly older, slightly more focused student on the campus of DePauw University, about an hour west of Indianapolis.

But at 32, Reitman has already achieved a reputation as one of Hollywood's top filmmakers. Despite the comic undertow of his three feature films -- "Thank You For Smoking," "Juno" and last year's "Up in the Air" -- there's a sobriety to his movies, as well as a consistent personal vision lacking in most of Tinseltown's hired guns.

Reitman is at Depauw to give a talk Monday evening to students and faculty at Kresge Auditorium titled, "Finding Your Place Up in the Air."

Speaking to media a few hours before while munching on peanut M&Ms, Reitman laid out his notion of being true to your own voice and how he approaches making movies -- which turn out to be one in the same.

How does he feel about the performance of "Up in the Air" at the Academy Awards? He pulls no punches: "Well, we went zero-for-six, so kinda shitty ... If you went 0-for-6 shooting in basketball, you probably wouldn't be thrilled."

He's never had to face someone like Ryan Bingham, the cool corporate heel played by George Clooney in the film: Reitman has never lost his job. But he has had to fire people, and says it isn't a fun experience. His method is to just be as truthful with the person getting axed as possible.

The son of comedy director Ivan Reitman ("Ghost Busters"), Jason bristles slightly at suggestions he achieved success at such a young age through nepotism. He points to his hustling days directing commercials, music videos and short films. While studying film at University of Southern California, he started a business distributing calendars to students as a way to make money to finance his nascent cinematic efforts.

But he also clearly has affection for his father, citing his advice as the best he ever received: "He said, 'Don't worry about it being funny. Your barometer for comedy is nowhere as good as your barometer for honesty. So when you're on set, don't ask yourself if this is funny, because you don't know. Sometimes people will laugh on set; sometimes they won't. Ask yourself, does this feel real? Is it truthful? Is it authentic?'"

Reitman has been giving these talks at universities and other venues almost since the start of his feature film career. He likes to encourage young(er) people to be true to their own voice, whether it's in filmmaking or any other vocation.

He does admit that he's not quite so forthcoming in these talks as Kevin Smith -- Reitman says he admires the "Clerks" director -- who's been known to answer any and all questions, even about his showbiz rivalries and sex life.

An avid film-goer, Reitman says his only financial indulgence after two hit films in a row was building a theater in his home with a 12-foot screen. Saying he's "never been interested in the silly stuff" of fame and fortune, he pointedly contrasts himself with Brett Ratner of the "Rush Hour" movies, who built an entire nightclub in his house.

Tiptoeing through the area of the unspoken Hollywood law against bad-mouthing other people's movies, Reitman says he does this with his friends all the time, but thinks it wouldn't be good manners to be in your face about it.

"You have tact -- don't just go out and be a jerk. My fellow filmmakers, we talk about other movies all the time. Like would I go to another director and say, 'Hey, you movie sucked!' I wouldn't say that."

After someone (me) pointed out that there are no other directors in the room, Reitman deigned to express his disappointment in Tim Burton's latest effort.

"I didn't like 'Alice in Wonderland.' I just didn't even know what it was trying to say. I liked the original 'Alice in Wonderland,' I thought this was just kind of ... a hodgepodge of shots."

He says he's not a big fan of the recent push to distribute movies in 3D -- for practical as well as artistic reasons. "As a storytelling experience goes, I preferred 'Avatar' in 2D to 3D. Some of that has to do with my eyes. My eyes just can't focus well in 3D. For some reason, things come across soft and my eyes feel strained... For me, there hasn't so far been a movie that has been enhanced by being 3D."

Reitman doesn't fret about box office tallies, other than the freedom monetary success allows him to pursue the artistic kind. "I've never really worried about what's going to be commercially successful. And I've been fortunate so far in that what tends to interest me tends to interest other people."

As for the future, Reitman is working on a screenplay adaptation of Joyce Maynard's novel "Labor Day," about a 13-year-old boy whose life is changed by an encounter with an escaped convict.

"I think about my career and the movies I want to make over time. Absolutely. I would like there to be a continuity of personal (themes) throughout all my work. I don't know if I'll be able to keep that up. But that's my aspiration. I don't have to see myself in (my films), but I do want to explore something that I'm feeling -- most often a question that I have. I'm looking for the answer, and sometimes making the movie helps me find it."

Did he get any answers out of "Up in the Air?"

"Yeah. They're not satisfying answers, but they are answers. The biggest answer I got in 'Up in the Air' is that there are no answers, which is an answer in of itself. Life is very complicated. And you will never know if you made the right decision or not in life. And there is a value in living alone, and there is a value of living connected. That's it."

Review: "Up in the Air"

What a breath of fresh air. "Up in the Air" is brave and true and unexpected.

It starts with a premise -- about people losing their jobs -- that is dour and daring material for a Hollywood film; and it ends in a way that is not tragic or fake-happy but feels like it has concluded exactly the way it should, and yet confounds expectations.

The movie, one of the year's finest, was directed by Jason Reitman, who after "Thank You for Smoking," "Juno" and this movie should be considered the top young filmmaker working today. Reitman and Sheldon Turner have co-written (from the novel by Walter Kim) a finely-tuned script that is hard-wired into the central nervous system of a country fretful about economic ruin.

George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a seemingly soulless corporate flunky who spent 322 days last year flying around the country telling people they've been laid off -- and he resents the 43 he had to spend in his antiseptic little apartment in Omaha.

The tribulations of modern travel that are so vexing to us -- the endless lines and numbing connection waits and impersonal security checkpoints -- Ryan takes to these like duck to water. His wallet is filled with a kaleidoscope of elite member cards that he waves like magic wands, transporting him to the front of all lines and making hassles vanish.

When we first meet Ryan, he is doing the thing he does so well: Telling people their jobs no longer exist. He does this respectfully, but firmly; he is prepared for his "clients" to cry, or fume, or even threaten and insult him. His job is to fire workers whose bosses are too cowardly to do it themselves, and with a minimum of legal exposure.

"We're here to make limbo tolerable," Ryan instructs an associate.

The scenes where Ryan lets people go are wrenchingly authentic. Reitman directs dozens of real people who have lost their jobs -- plus a few recognizable actors, like J.K. Simmons -- through their paces without a single false note.

With one in six Americans unemployed or underemployed, these sequences will have a special resonance for many in the audience who have had that soul-crushing experience themselves.

(They certainly did for me; my newspaper job became "no longer available," to use the movie's parlance, almost exactly one year ago from the day I saw this film.)

Two developments arrive to throw Ryan's life for a loop: His own job is about to become obsolete, and he meets a female version of himself who inspires him to think about pitching his suitcase permanently.

First, the former. Anna Kendrick plays Natalie, a 23-year-old hotshot who wants to make the impersonal nature of job layoffs even more so. Her idea: Save the expensive travel costs for people like Ryan and do the terminations via computer teleconferencing.

Even Ryan, who in his spare time gives de-motivational speeches urging people to dump all their personal baggage, is appalled by the indignity. But his bottom-line boss (Jason Bateman) wants to try it out.

Natalie's ambitious, but not a bad egg, as Ryan discovers when he takes her along on one of his extended layoff trips. Kendrick gives a layered, deeply-felt performance as a young woman who has a lot technological know-how, but knows little about how people tick.

Vera Farmiga plays Alex, Ryan's fellow traveler, who has quickie hook-ups with him whenever their flight plans align. It's a wonderfully perfect arrangement for two people who shirk any emotional tie-downs. When Alex tells Ryan that she is "the girl you don't have to worry about," his face glows with bliss.

I've already written 600 words about this movie, and could easily go another thirty score. Suffice to say that Ryan's journey is just beginning. The scene where he asks his stranger of a sister permission to give her away at her wedding, and is refused, packs as much emotional punch as anything I've seen this year.

For a story about a guy who spends his life "Up in the Air," this movie carries a bundle of weight.

3.5 stars