Review: "The Bookshop"

Oh, those repressed Brits! So impossible to say what they mean! How they must stammer and not look each other in the eye or express their true feelings! I’m not sure if ever a people got as much cinematic mileage out of having a large piece of lumber ensconced in their collective backsides.

Part "Remains of the Day," part "Local Hero" and with a few bits 'n' pieces of other British pastoral flicks tossed in, "The Bookshop" is set in a quaint little village where big things are happening beneath the workaday hustle and bustle.

Emily Mortimer plays Florence Green, a widower of early middle years who arrives in the lovely (fictional) seaside town of Hardborough in 1959. She lost her husband in the war, and now has the idea to open up the bookshop she’s always dreamed of. She buys a dilapidated old house in the middle of town, known as The Old House, fixes it up and is set to open her doors.

It seems that Violet Gamart (Patricia Clarkson), the local wealthy matriarch, has her own ideas for the house. She invites Florence to her latest grand party and suggests that instead she give the house over for a local arts center.

When women of Mrs. Gamart’s station offer suggestions, what they really want is acquiescence.

But Florence resolves to push on, and at first things go well. Books fly off the shelves, and she even takes on an assistant in Christine (Honor Kneafsey), who is about 12 and from a working-class family. Christine is very honest; if she were an adult we would call her blunt. She took the job making it clear she doesn’t clear for reading herself, and loathes boys. But the two get on marvelously.

Her best customer is Edmund Brundish (Bill Nighy), the town’s mysterious widower. He lives in a dilapidated great mansion, takes frequent walks and consumes books voraciously. Brundish does not actually come into town, at least not during the daytime. So Florence sends him books, three or four at a time, with the understanding that he can return anything he doesn’t like. None ever are, and he takes an especial liking to the works of Ray Bradbury.

Eventually the two have tea, to talk about Florence’s dilemma of whether to order 250 copies of “Lolito,” the controversial new book from Vladimir Nabokov. She carries through with the plan on Brundish’s recommendation of the novel. It causes a scandal in the bucolic town, which is all the reason Mrs. Gamart needs to launch a slow-moving but inexorable campaign against the bookshop.

Written and directed by Isabel Coixet from the book by Penelope Fitzgerald, “The Bookshop” is a keen observation of manners. The townsfolk act solicitously toward Florence, from the banker to her attorney, yet there’s a sense of predatory interest in their gaze. They’re not sure how to take a woman of independence and courage, and curiosity soon melts into malevolence.

Milo North, an indolent local bachelor played by James Lance, hangs around the edges of the story, appearing to pitch woo at Florence while also making certain to stay in the good graces of the Gamarts.

It’s a tender performance by Nighy, playing man of great sensitivity and pain, who reaches out after decades of solitude to another person through their shared love of books. It’s not exactly a romance, since he’s about 30 years older than her, but in a different time and place…

“The Bookshop” is a bittersweet story, one that celebrates the need for hopes and dreams while recognizing that they usually don’t come true. Or even when they do, other people have dreams that may conflict, which often leads to nightmares. True bravery comes from carrying on even knowing this.

Review: "Friends with Benefits"

Boy, I could really feel "Friends with Benefits" trying.

This hip romantic/comedy wants you to know that it's not just an average romantic comedy. It is aware that it's a romantic comedy, and acknowledges and mocks the convention of that genre -- even as it falls back on them time and again.

Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis -- two performers whose acting skills have not heretofore impressed me -- play a pair of best buds who decide to incorporate sex into the relationship while keeping the friendship intact.

Of course, this never works in real life, or in the movies. And the characters and script of "Friends" is smart enough to admit this before setting off into an adventure that the audience and the film both know will fail.

The movie seems to think that by announcing itself in this way, it can than proceed to do every predictable thing we know is going to happen, but because they called it beforehand it's cool.

This movie reminded me of a shy, awkward guy who approaches a girl at a bar and opens with, "You may think this is really stupid, but..." And then, having told her that what he's going to say is pitiful, he is surprised when she's inclined to think so, too.

Timberlake is Dylan, who works at a rambunctious start-up website in the crunchy Pacific Northwest. He's recruited to interview for a position as art director at GQ magazine in New York City, with Kunis playing Jamie, the headhunter pitching the job to him. Or rather, she's pitching him the job, because Dylan is very ambivalent about moving to the big city and going mainstream.

After a magical evening on the town, right down to a massive flash mob dancing in Times Square that Jamie arranged just for Dylan, he agrees. (I can only imagine if he'd said, "Yeah, I'm bushed, gonna just go back to my hotel room." That's a lot of phone calls to make.) Not only that, they find such a connection that they start hanging out as friends.

After a pair of crashes in their respective love lives, they decide to add sex to the bill of fare. No commitments, no mushy scenes of regret, just an exchange of physical needs -- not unlike a game of tennis, they reason.

There's a certain friskiness to their couplings, including some glimpses of Timberlake and Kunis' naked posteriors (or at least Kunis' body double, I suspect).
I don't need to go into detail about what happens next. Despite the movie's pretensions and look-ma-no-hands self-referencing, it still ends up right where you knew it was going to go.

In fact, the mocking of romcom convention often ends up backfiring. There's a number of bits when Dylan breaks into snippets of song -- ostensibly to comment on the intrusive use of music in romantic movies, but really I suspect to give Timberlake a chance to show off his golden pipes.

But then later, "Friends" employs the same syrupy, incongruous musical cues that it was just lampooning.

Director Will Gluck, who helmed last year's clever "Easy A," co-wrote the screenplay with Keith Merryman and David A. Newman. They do manage a few funny moments, and a couple of characters who were more interesting than the stars.

Woody Harrelson plays Tommy, a co-worker of Dylan's who is extremely enthusiastic about expressing his gayness. He's positively puffed up with happiness and wants the world to know it's because he loves men. I'd like to think that such an exuberant soul could exist and work at a straight men's magazine, though I tend to doubt it.

The great character actor Richard Jenkins plays Dylan's father, who's suffering from dementia. The writers give him one great scene in an airport that was so passionate and angry and true, I felt sorry that the movie around it was unworthy.

1.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Easy A"

I hope things work out for Emma Stone.

"Easy A" was a smart, literate take on the sexual politics of the high school crucible. No surprise there, since it's based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter."
But it turns out this all-too-rare kind of movie doesn't bode well for its star.

Winona Ryder was a revelation in "Heathers," but after a few years on top her career fizzled after that whole shoplifting ordeal. (Meanwhile, her male peers got into much worse scrapes and sailed right along.) Lindsay Lohan looked like Ryder's heir after the clever "Mean Girls" a few years ago, and I think we all know what a cascading train wreck she's become.

Here's hoping Stone, who made quite an impression as a smart girl who pretends to be a floozy, keeps it real.

Olive is a nobody at her school, not so much disliked as anonymous. A virgin, she spreads the rumor that she slept with a college guy to stop her friends from pressuring her into sex. Turns out it gives her a leg up the social hierarchy.

After repeating the trick for a gay friend to stop the harassment he's been getting, Olive soon finds herself the most famous -- make that infamous -- gal in town. Soon every loser and geek around is bribing her to pretend they had sex.

"I fake-rocked your world!" she complains to one under-generous benefactor.
The movie's so smart, in fact, that some of the jokes will sail over the head of some audience members. There's a novelty: A film about high schoolers that challenges those who watch it, instead of indulging them.

Extras are the same for DVD and Blu-ray editions, and are just so-so.

There's a gag reel and Emma Stone's audition tape. The centerpiece is a feature-length commentary track with Stone and director Will Gluck.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars

Review: "Easy A"

It's so bursting with originality and smart dialogue, I can forgive "Easy A" for sometimes seeming too literate for its own good. But this is, after all, a high school flick inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," so even though I didn't really buy the words coming out of the mouth of a precocious 17-year-old, I still enjoyed knowing somebody uttered them.

For example, at one point notorious high schooler Olive (Emma Stone) refers to a homosexual friend as "Kinsey 6 gay." Now, how many people seeing this movie are going to know who Alfred Kinsey was, or what his 6-point scale meant? Maybe 2 percent? (Other than us failed psychology majors, of course.)

But I'm impressed that rookie screenwriter Bert V. Royal and director Will Gluck put that in their movie, knowing it'll sail over the heads of most of their intended audience. Who knows, maybe a few will Google it, and be rewarded with a delayed chuckle.

Olive is a nobody at her high school in Ojai (an actual place in the California desert) who stumbles upon a left-handed way to popularity: She pretends to have slept with a college guy. In actuality she's still a virgin who can't get a date. But she loves the way people talk and stare. She may not exactly be liked, but at least she's known.

Then the aforementioned friend, who's been getting hassled by the jocks because of his suspected sexuality, asks Olive to pretend to sleep with him. They stage a very public tryst at a party. Soon he's one of the guys, and Olive has become the most notorious girl at school. She flaunts it by stitching a red "A" on all her (suddenly low-cut) blouses, reveling in her newfound power.

"Now I'll have to get a low-back tattoo and pierce something not on my head," Olive jokes.

Amanda Bynes plays Marianne, the snooty leader of the teen Christian coalition, who becomes determined to see Olive shunned right out of school. Meanwhile, her best friend Rhia (Alyson Michalka) is none too pleased about being shunted out of the spotlight.

Royal populates the movie with likeable if unlikely characters. Patricia Clarkson and Stanley play Olive's parents, steadfastly adoring and supportive but cheerily keeping things light, cracking jokes and tossing double entendres. They're the sort of folks every teen wants to have, but none of them do because they reside not in Ojai, Calif., but inside a writer's head.

Thomas Haden Church is Mr. Griffith, the English teacher who manages to make Nathaniel Hawthorne seem cool -- or at least tolerable -- to high school kids. He likes to wander around the school's common areas, confiscating cigarettes and dispensing sage advice wrapped in a world-weary sarcasm.

Things grow drearier for Olive when she pretends to have slept with a string of losers and nerds, who pay her off with gift cards from The Home Depot and such in return for rescuing their masculinity. Olive is offended when one pretend lover offers only a coupon. "I fake-rocked your world!" she protests.

Of course, being a smart girl Olive soon realizes that taking money for pretending to have sex is not terribly different from actually selling sex. Luckily Todd, the cute boy who plays the school mascot (Penn Badgley), decides to suddenly requite the ardor Olive had been directing his way since 8th grade. It's exactly like a scene out of the '80s movies she cherishes.

I think "Easy A" will be most remembered as Emma Stone's breakout performance. I thought she was a little flat in other movies like last year's "Zombieland," but this role allows her to be witty and cool and dark in a Winona-Ryder-in-"Heathers" sort of way.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Legendary"

An after-school-special on steroids, "Legendary" is the story of a fake wrestler teaching his kid brother how to be a real wrestler.

WWE star John Cena headlines this sports drama produced by the wrestling empire's film production company, which also bankrolled his previous star vehicles, "12 Rounds" and "The Marine."

Those were mindless action flicks suited to Cena's stone-faced, muscle-bound appeal. This time, though, he's called upon to do more than grimace and growl, and his meager acting chops leave him face-down on the mat.

Director Mel Damski, a television veteran, tries to shoot around his star's inability to emote by pairing him in scenes with another actor who does all the heavy-lifting -- shouting and pleading and such. Cena just stands there, tight-lipped and blank-faced.

Unfortunately, making movies is a contact sport. Other than a couple of times where his character gets into bar fights, Cena sucks the life out of every scene he's in.

He plays Mike Chetley, a legendary high school wrestler now facing a bad stretch. He just lost his job, has a string of parasitic girlfriends, and can't stop drinking and brawling.

Then Mike gets a visit from Cal (Devon Graye), his younger brother. Unlike Mike and their father, who tragically died in a car accident years ago, Cal is a skinny beanpole, a smart nerd who gets bullied.

Cal decides he wants to try out for the school wrestling team, at the urging of Red (Danny Glover), a mysterious stranger who shows up one day with a fishing pole and a whole cornfield worth of homilies.

Cal's mother (Patricia Clarkson) is secretly torn up over her estrangement from Mike, but seems to have a healthy relationship with Cal. She hates the idea of him wrestling, though, having seen it consume the lives of her husband and elder boy.

Cal's a washout at wrestling, losing all his matches, so he seeks out Mike for coaching. Of course, it's mostly a ruse to engage in a little male bonding.

The screenplay by John Posey (who also plays Cal's coach) is an assemblage of moldy sports movie clichés and made-for-television sentimentality. For example, Cal begs Mike to teach him a rare and difficult wrestling move, so we just know it's going to be whipped out for the big match, a la the Crane Kick from "The Karate Kid."

The mushy melodrama stuff builds toward the big reveal of a Dark Secret that, when it finally arrives, feels trite and inauthentic.

It's a curious thing to use a "pro" wrestling star in a movie about the real kind. Actual competitive wrestling organizers go out of their way to disassociate their sport from the phony entertainment version. Meanwhile, it's doubtful the average WWE fan is interested in a bunch of scrawny kids in tights and ear protectors down on all fours.

Still, some showbiz slips in. There's one scene complete with Cal wearing a gaudy robe entering the arena to rock music and pyrotechnics that would have immediately got him banned for life from a real high school wrestling circuit.

So "Legendary" is a movie that's not for fans of either real wrestling or the bogus kind. That leaves it with those dying to see a lunkhead pro wrestler whose screen presence could best be described as a charisma sinkhole stumbling through "serious actor" mode. Count me out.

1.5 stars out of four