Review: "The Secret Garden"

What a beautiful film.

And I don't just mean the visual splendor of "The Secret Garden," which is considerable. No, I mean what a lovely portrait of broken people attempting to put the pieces back together. Here is a movie that is sad but also hopeful, that recognizes terrible things happen and people often react to them in unhealthy ways -- but everyone still retains a chance of redemption.

The novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, about an orphaned British girl sent to live with her reclusive uncle after World War II, was previously turned into a 1993 movie directed by Agnieszka Holland (seen by me but, alas, little remembered). Jack Thorne wrote this adaptation, which was directed by Marc Munden.

It's a film of bright colors and deep shadows, of pessimism and regret, but also light and grace. Dixie Egerickx is a revelation as Mary Lennox, a smart girl living in India whose parents died of cholera. She loved to tell stories and invent characters, but was tormented by a mother who seemed distant and uncaring.

Egerickx has an immediacy as an actor you rarely see in child performers; she seems always very much in the moment. The words that come out of Mary's mouth feel like they have just spontaneously formed there, rather than something a kid is trying very much to read.

Colin Firth plays Lord Archibald Craven, a lonely widower living in a massive castle (at least us Yanks would call it that) called Misselthwaite Manor. Once a grand place, it's fallen nearly into ruin. Lord Craven has a hunchback and spends most of his time stewing in his study or throwing away things that remind him of his dead wife.

Mary is soon ensconced in one of the many rooms, left virtually to herself by Mrs. Medlock (Julie Walters), the stern sergeant-at-arms who runs all of the household affairs. She stomps about the halls with clanking keys and a set frown. Mary doesn't even get to meet her uncle for a few days, exploring the vast overgrown estates and meeting a stray dog she soon befriends.

She eventually learns that she has a cousin, Colin (Edan Hayhurst), who is sickly and cries all the time. And she meets Dickon (Amir Wilson), the younger brother of Martha (Isis Davis), the maid who shows Mary some of the only kindness she encounters. Dickon is sort of a feral boy wandering the foggy moors, and becomes Mary's guide and companion.

The biggest discovery is, of course, the garden, which used to belong to her aunt but has been locked away behind a high wall and left to rot. It's a place of magic and mystery, helped by lovely CGI as plants seem to grow their branches toward her in friendship and birds and other creatures nudge her toward secrets and clues. As she and Dickon spend more time there, the garden starts to revive and bloom.

Mary becomes convinced that Colin will be healed by his mother's garden, if only she can finagle a way to get him into his wheelchair and outside. He's a stubborn nut, desperately lonely but also resentful of Mary's presence. Meanwhile, Mrs. Medlock is closing in with her spying and interfering, intent on seeing that Mary is sent off to a boarding school and out of her uncle's hair.

Maeve Dermody and Jemma Powell play Mary's mother and aunt, respectively, who speak no words but acts as a kind of peaceful, ghostly presences, lingering around Mary's memories and visions. Initially haunted by her memories of her mother, Mary starts to accept the idea that the sadness that kept them apart was not her fault.

At its heart, "The Secret Garden" is a story about pain. We needn't shut ourselves off from pain, it insists, because pain is inevitable and most be felt in order to be endured and eventually overcome. It's a lesson grownups spend their whole lives trying to learn, let alone children who have been orphaned.

There is beauty in this message and this film, which seems both timeless and timely.

Review: "Radioactive"

There’s little crackle of original energy in “Radioactive.” This by-the-numbers biopic of scientist Marie Curie holds few surprises and insights, and feels like it’s just checking off boxes on somebody’s clipboard.

Rosamund Pike plays Curie, the famed French – actually, born in Poland as Maria Sklodowska – scientist who along with her husband Pierre Curie (Sam Riley) pioneered the research of radioactivity, i.e. the process by which unstable matter decays and gives off energy.

Directed by Marjane Satrapi (“Persepolis”) from a screenplay by Jack Thorne (based on a book by Lauren Redniss), “Radioactive” plays out as a standard “great man/woman” film. We are astounded at the massive accomplishments of one person while learning about the personal challenges that nearly kept them from historic achievement.

Certainly, Curie’s bona fides for notoriety are indisputable: first woman to win the Nobel Prize, shared with her husband and fellow physicist, she matched that a few years later by becoming the first person to win a second Nobel in a different field, chemistry. She was the first female professor at the University of Paris, discovered two new elements for the Periodic Table and pioneered the use of X-ray machines on the battlefield of World War I, saving countless lives and limbs.

Curie is, quite literally, in the Panthéon of greatness.

The story starts with Curie’s death – likely due to radiation poisoning, as thousands of chucklers have loved to joke. Both Curies unwittingly received massive doses of harmful energy during their years of experimentation. Only later did they learn about people who had partaken of the benefits of their research who were developing tumors or anemia.

This is the sort of movie where the star is wheeled into the hospital in copious stippling makeup to make her look older, and the head physician loudly exclaims: “But this is Madame Curie!!” Everything in the story feels twice underlined as if we were missing how this is all Much Importance.

The portrait that emerges is of a headstrong woman who put her science first, but nevertheless found true love with Pierre. Early on she loses her place in the university laboratory due to sexist pig-headedness, and he offers Marie a spot in his. Despite their promise not to share experiments or beds, they soon do.

Pierre died in 1906 in a street accident, and for a time Curie found herself buffeted by oppressive forces from French society – especially when she took up with her younger, married colleague, Paul Langevin (Aneurin Barnard). She was even accused of being a foreign collaborator and a Jew to boot.

The film loses juice in the second half after being sustained by Curie’s relationship with Pierre. It is interesting to see a portrait of historical marriage in which the woman is clearly the dominant force. At one point she even coldly informs him, “My mind is finer.”

Once that cycle of magnetic attraction and repulsion is over, though, the story seems to bleed energy with an astonishingly short half-life. Anya Taylor-Joy briefly shows up too late as Curie’s now-adult daughter, Irene. (Who would later go on to win her own Nobel in conjunction with her husband/collaborator.)

There are a few dream-like sequences set in the future where we see the consequences of Curie’s discoveries, such as a crippled boy receiving radiation treatment or an atomic bomb test in 1960s America. The movie tries too hard to convince us of the monumental consequence of this life, as if Marie Curie were a name wholly unknown.

Pity that “Radioactive” didn’t better take to heart the lessons of its subject, and shown a little more enthusiasm for experimentation.

Review: "The Aeronauts"

“The Aeronauts” has a great, rousing aerial adventure story to tell and a pair of engaging characters to carry it. It’s a thrilling piece of white-knuckle historical entertainment.

But there’s a big “but.”

It didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the film, but it’s worth talking about. More on that in a bit.

Eddie Redmayne plays James Glaisher, a noted scientist and “aeronaut,” which was the term for people who flew in hot-air balloons before there were airplanes. He was a pioneer of meteorology, arguing mankind had the ability to predict the weather.

As played skillfully by Redmayne, Glaisher is a bookworm with an obstinate streak, a hardscrabble young striver determined to show up his scientist elders who scoff at his crackpot theories. What he lacks in charisma he makes up for in mettle.

The uppity yin to his sour yang is Felicity Jones as Amelia Rennes. She is a celebrated aeronaut pilot who shows up to her launches in pure carnival mode -- including somersaults, doggie sidekick and crowd-pleasing boasts. Rennes understands that balloon flight is as much showbiz as science, and without an audience and financial backers, nobody goes up.

She’s a brash proto-feminist who knows how to please the masses while brusquely pushing aside the all-male power structures that would limit her achievements.

Jones’ is by far the more delightful and proactive character, and the bulk of the death-defiance is performed by Rennes. If you’ve seen the trailer for the film, directed by Tom Harper from a script by Jack Thorne, you already know about the scenes where she clambers up the side of the balloon while thousands of feet in the icy air.

Clearly, this film will prove a special challenge for those with acrophobia. I can’t even get up on a 6-foot ladder without getting the willies, so you can imagine how I felt during all the yawning shots of the ground staring at us from far below.

Trust me, the CGI special effects are very convincing.

The story centers on an attempt by the British to set a new height record in 1862, after the dastardly French had taken the crown. Aeronauts would plunge into the open skies without oxygen tanks, braving frigid temperatures, howling winds and mind-twisting atmospheric conditions. More than a few died.

It was a historic achievement by Glaisher, though not terribly well remembered today. So “The Aeronauts” gives us the pleasure of rediscovering a bit of forgotten lore.

You will notice I just mentioned Glaisher and did not write “and Rennes.” Here comes the “but.”
Rennes is a completely invented figure. Glaisher did not have a female partner during his ascent.

That’s fine as far as it goes – movies are wont to change history all over the place if it serves their storytelling purpose. (For example, the real Glaisher was an established scientist in his 50s in 1862, not a boyish Redmayne lookalike.)

And it’s good to recognize the overlooked role women have played in the advancement of science and discovery over the centuries. Rennes is based on some notable real-life women aeronauts, especially Sophie Blanchard. In the movie, Rennes lost her husband in an earlier ballooning tragedy, as did Blanchard.

Except Glaisher did have an actual partner for the flight, named Henry Coxwell. And he gets written out of the story entirely.

Coxwell was also middle-aged and a dentist to boot, so not nearly as exciting as a woman daredevil performing showstopper stunts.

I’m not sure how I feel about the switcheroo. Historians should be affronted – imagine doing a movie about Lewis & Clark and they swap out Clark for a nonexistent female explorer. Certainly if I was one of Clark’s descendants, I’d be pretty irked.

But I’m here to review movies, not get all intersectional on ya.

I say “The Aeronauts” is a terrific piece of entertainment, even if it treats the historical record as dead weight, like a sand bag to be untied so the balloon can soar higher.

Video review: "Wonder"

“Wonder” is a tender-hearted flick that makes no bones about being a tearjerker. Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson star as the parents of Auggie, a 10-year-old boy played by Jacob Tremblay who was born with severe facial defects.

He’s been more or less hiding out his whole life, being home-schooled by his mom or wearing an astronaut’s helmet in public to ward off stares and comments. But now he’s attending school for the first time, and this is the story of his entering a broader, scarier world.

The screenplay by Steve Conrad, Jack Thorne and Stephen Chbosky, who also directed, is a straightforward string of encounters. We know the teasing and taunting is going to come, but it’s no less painful when it does. Auggie soon finds a friend in a scholarship student (Noah Jupe), but the inevitable setback is just around the corner. Mandy Patinkin plays the wise and helpful school headmaster.

The movie, based on the best-selling novel by R.J. Palacio, also follows around Auggie’s older sister, Via (Izabela Vidovic), for a bit, and we get to see the family dynamic from her perspective. She loves her little brother, but it’s hard to be teenager when your sibling soaks up all of the grownups’ attention.

It may not be the most original movie to come down the pike, but “Wonder” is decorated with nice, crisp performances and an authentic human story that’s hard to resist. Three hankies, at least.

Bonus features are quite good. The DVD edition has a feature-length commentary track by Chbosky and Palacio, music video for “Brand New Eyes” and a featurette on the soundtrack.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray version, and you add two more featurettes, “A Child’s Sense of Wonder” and “What a Wonderful World,” plus a five-part making of documentary titled, “Summer of Fun.”

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Review: "Wonder"

"Wonder" is an old-fashioned, straight up weepie. Tears will be jerked, you can be sure. I liked the fact that the movie is unambiguous about its intentions, and carries them through effectively without irony or coyness.

Jacob Tremblay, who was so amazing in "Room," plays Auggie Pullman, a boy of 10 born with severe facial defects. He's been through 27 surgeries -- his family displays the hospital wristbands as a collage -- and has been home-schooled all his life by his ferocious devoted mom, played by Julia Roberts. Now, as he enters 5th grade, it has been decided it's time for him to integrate into a regular school with other kids.

Well, sort of. In Hollywood parlance, a "regular school" is an exclusive New York City private institution, Beecher Prep, where families that live in multi-million-dollar brownstones pay something like the U.S. median household income to send their kids to rub elbows with the best of the best. But for the purposes of the story, which is based on the best-selling by R.J. Palacio, what's important is that he's around other children consistently for the first time in his life.

The underlying themes of the movie are bullying and otherness. Mom and dad (Owen Wilson) send Auggie to school with the full knowledge that he will be stared at and picked on. They figure it's something he's going to have to deal with sooner or later, and calculate he's reached a level of emotional stability to deal with it.

Also, there's a subplot about the mom wanting to complete her master's thesis that was put on hold a decade ago to be his full-time guardian and tutor. And, frankly, she rightly wants to reclaim a little piece of her own life. I admired that the filmmakers -- director Stephen Chbosky, who co-wrote the script with Steve Conrad and Jack Thorne -- included this dynamic.

I know it runs counter to commonly accepted precepts and hagiography about mothers, but I personally think it's unhealthy for parents to let their kids think they have nothing going in their lives beyond raising them. Part of being a role model is not being afraid to display ambition and individuality.

The makeup effects on Tremblay are very good, to the point I didn't recognize him until I read the credits afterward. Auggie is a smart, sensitive kid who likes science and Minecraft, and has adapted pretty well to life inside his family unit. He tends to wear an oversized astronaut's helmet in public to avoid stares; it's his armor, really. So he has a tough time when his parents ask him to relinquish it.

Auggie does face teasing and isolation, but also picks up a friend in Jack Will (Noah Jupe), a poor scholarship kid with a nice streak. The joy on mom's face when he brings home a pal to play is worth the price of admission alone. Still, old troubles soon follow and Auggie finds himself estranged again.

He's got an older teen sister, Via (Izabela Vidovic), and I was impressed the film devotes a significant amount of screen time following her life and seeing how it's impacted by having a brother who soaks up every ounce of attention from their parents. She's quiet and shy, and dealing with an unexpected fallout with her own best friend, Miranda (Danielle Rose Russell).

She starts to blossom when she joins the school theater club, and meets a cute, funny boy named Justin (Nadji Jeter) who takes a fancy to her.

I also greatly enjoyed Mandy Patinkin as Mr. Tushman, the headmaster of the school who understands the way kids actually think and behave, rather than the idealized regard in which their parents hold them. He is infinitely patient and kind, makes jokes about his name before the students have a chance to, and even manages to treat the bullies in a way that lets them know they are not irredeemable. He's basically the Santa Claus of educators.

"Wonder" plays out exactly the way we expect. Given the premise, we could practically write the ending ourselves. But it's still a touching movie that celebrates the weak and the meek, and shows there different kinds of strength.