Review: "Uncle Frank"

 

 

"Uncle Frank" is one of those movies that is heartfelt, splendidly acted and as predictable as a sunset. 

It's written and directed by Alan Ball, who won an Oscar for the screenplay for "American Beauty," which was something truly original and even subversive. In "Uncle Frank" he has created something utterly maudlin that wraps itself in a blanket of self-regard.

Paul Bettany plays the titular character, a man from South Carolina who moved to New York City because he was smart and gay. The smart part we figure out pretty quickly, and soon thereafter the gay smart. We can tell this from the very first scene because while home for his father's birthday he gives thoughtful gifts, doesn't yell at the children or watch football. Gay!

I just hate, hate, hate these movies that present everyone from the South as walking caricatures. Stephen Root plays the dad, whose contempt for his own child is so palpable it practically manifests into physical form. It's never explored, simply presented for effect.

Steve Zahn plays Frank's brother, Mike, well on his way to following in dad's hateful, hurtful footsteps. Judy Greer is his wife, Kitty, and Jane McNeill plays his sister, Neva, who is the one who "knows" about him. The great Margo Martindale plays his mother, who mostly stays in the kitchen but has a big heart.

Lois Smith turns up as the batty Aunt Butch, and I'll just let that name sit there where it belongs.

The person Frank is Uncle to is Beth, Mike and Kitty's daughter, played by Sophia Lillis, who you may remember from her terrific performance as Beverly in the first "It," the first one that wasn't terrible. It's doubtful you'd remember her if "Uncle Frank" was the first thing you saw her in, because the script gives her almost nothing to do but observe and be present. 

When Beth was a mousy kid, Uncle Frank counseled her to get out of Creekville and be whoever she wants to be, rather than what others expect of her. So a few years later she hightails it to New York University, where Frank is an English professor. Of course, he's not taking his own advice, living in the closet even though he's been with his boyfriend, Wally (Peter Macdissi), for a number of years.

The story is set in 1973, which was an interesting time to be gay. After the Stonewall Riots, the LBGTQ community (as we call it now, but not then) was in the pubic conscious for the first time, though usually relegated to cheap jokes in TV and the movies. Down South, though, the movie presents homosexuality as still a fire-and-brimstone offense, worthy of shunning or even stoning.

Of course, once things turn around for Frank and his family -- as we know they must -- the womenfolk will come around with stories about how their hairdresser or friend from school is also "that way" ... and it's really no big deal! 

That seems to be the big takeaway of "Uncle Frank": being gay is no big deal!

I liked Bettany, playing a sort of morose man who takes things in stride as best he can. He puts on a serene front of a self-assured intellectual, but deep down his dad's hatred -- along with a teen romance we learn about in flashback -- weighs heavily upon him. 

The precipitating event is Frank's father's death, the subsequent road trip home with Beth for the funeral, and the expected revelation of his sexual prefer... orientation! I mean orientation! Because Webster's tells me so, or at least it does now (after some recent, hasty changes).

Wally follows along, and Macdissi is the one breath of fresh air in the movie, playing an Arabic man who is confidently, openly gay. Always with a smile on his face, an open ear and a hug at the ready, Wally is light years ahead of Frank in terms of his personal journey. He's willing to wait around for Frank to catch up, but not forever.

I realize as I'm wrapping up that it sounds like I hated this movie. I didn't. It's a fine effort. The cast is splendid, and I'm a sucker for any movie featuring lots of vintage cars. It never drags and a few sections are genuinely enjoyable.

If it's possible to like everything about a movie except its basic premise, then "Uncle Frank" is it. Maybe this is the sort of visceral disconnect people had with "Green Book" that baffled me. A man coming out to his family in 1973 just doesn't seem like very daring or even interesting subject matter for a film in 2020. 

I think maybe if the Frank-Beth relationship was what really drove the story, I'd feel different. But she winds up being a blank slate who's still mostly blank at the end. Though she does get one humdinger of a one-liner while visiting an auto repair shop. If Ball had kept things going with her, or given Beth her own parallel obstacles to overcome, then Frank's anguish would seem more palpable.

Instead, she's pretty much relegated to the background for the back half of "Uncle Frank." Meanwhile, Frank wrestles with his dad's ghost and his own bitter memories, and the end point of his trip might as well be a flashing billboard everyone can see way, way off. 

Here's a movie that never kept me guessing.

Video review: "IT"

“IT” was scary, moody and effective. It was also overlong and troubled by some bad pacing. Not to mention the overreliance on “boo gotcha!” moments. Those work fine the first few times. But the 23rd, not so much.

I haven’t read the book by Stephen King or seen the 1990s television miniseries, which I think helped my viewing experience since I didn’t have anything to compare it to. For those as innocent of the story as me, it’s about a gaggle of kids -- 13 in the movie, 11 in the book -- who battle Pennywise, the evil clown they refer to simply as “it.”

In the convoluted world that only exists in books and onscreen, these children are left to battle the dread spirit on their own without any meaningful assistance from adults in their seemingly normal town of Derry, Maine.  Those grownups that do wander into the tale are unhelpful at best or actively malevolent in all likelihood.

Bill Skarsgård gives a terrific performance, supplemented by dramatic makeup effects that make Pennywise resemble Larry from the Three Stooges after a spin through Timothy Leary’s medicine cabinet. Pennywise speaks in a disturbing mix of childish sing-song and guttural croaks.

Kids in Derry start turning up missing in astonishing numbers, and the local sheriff is too busy drinking or abusing his son, local bully Henry (Nicholas Hamilton), to do anything about it. So it’s left to the club of misfit students who call themselves the Losers to investigate.

The first half of the movie is a little slow, but once the battle with Pennywise is joined it picks up pace and energy. After grossing nearly $700 million worldwide, the sequel to “IT” -- which picks up a few decades later when the kids are adults -- is an absolute certainty. Which maybe gives you a clue as to Pennywise’s ultimate fate at the end of this film.

Video bonus features are a mite light considering how much scratch the movie made at theaters. Both the DVD and Blu-ray editions come with 11 deleted or extended scenes; “Pennywise Lives!”, a look at Skarsgård’s transformation; “The Losers’ Club,” a behind-the-scenes look at how the teen stars bonded during production; and “Author of Fear,” a look at King’s creation and its cinematic adaptation.

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "It"

Just a few quick thoughts. Sam Watermeier is handling the main review over at The Film Yap, so please head there to check out his more detailed criticism.

I am entirely innocent of Stephen King's horror novel or the TV miniseries adaptation from the early 1990s. You might say I'm a virgin of "It." (Yes, that's an inside joke for those of you who are familiar. More riffs on this in a bit.)

Taken on its own merits, "It" is an effective supernatural thriller/scarer that painstaking builds a pervasive mood of creepiness and despair. It relies entirely too much on "boo-gotcha" frights, and at two hours and 15 minutes, the jump scares quickly lose effectiveness. But it builds rather than loses momentum as it goes, which is always preferable to a movie that starts strong and sags.

The town of Derry, Maine, in the late 1980s of the film's setting is a place of claustrophobia and rot, where the pretty middle-class house facades hide moldering foundations, and seemingly every adult is unhelpful at best and actively malevolent in the higher likelihood.

I enjoyed the cast of young actors, whose characters call themselves "the Losers," though it's certainly no squad of "Goonies" or "Stand By Me" in terms of how deep an impact they make on us viscerally.

The most interesting by far is Beverly (Sophia Lillis), a rebellious girl who's been tagged as the school slut for dubious reasons. She's a mix of brashness and self-hate, plagued by a dad who walks right up to the point of sexual abuse, demanding that she always be "my little girl." Rather than just being a victim, Bev has internalized the torment and uses it to her advantage. There's a scene where she uses her burgeoning feminine wiles to dupe the town pharmacist, who returns her flirting with alarming enthusiasm.

The other standout is Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), the smart, shy new kid who's a library fiend and secret poet. He takes a shine to Beverly -- actually, all the boys do -- and we keep thinking they're going to end up together. Emotionally and logically, that would be the most satisfying. But he's the short fat kid, so that's not in the cards for a mainstream Hollywood film.

My understanding is in the book the African-American kid (Chosen Jacobs) occupies the writer/chronicler role, and I guess we also couldn't have the black kid be the smart one. Damnable expectations.

The rest of the boys line up into more conventional slots: the hypochondriac, the loudmouth, the worrywart, etc. Ostensibly the main character, Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) is rather a dud, notable only for his grief over his young brother, Georgie, who's the first victim in a rather gruesome scene.

The presence of Finn Wolfhard, the main kid in the "Stranger Things" TV show, was discordant for me. It's like when all the same goombah actors turn up in mafia movies and shows.

It's not hard to discern that bullying is the real theme of the movie. The evil clown/spirit Pennywise (an excellent Bill Skarsgård) feeds off of fear. Killing his victims seems to be just a byproduct of his life cycle. Once we learn this, it's only a matter of time before saying "I'm not afraid of you" becomes their main weapon.

The makeup and special effects for Pennywise are first-rate. He sort of resembles Larry from The Three Stooges on acid. I liked how his two front teeth are twice as long as the rest, which throws us off visually just a smidge. Skarsgård speaks in a mix of childish sing-song and guttural croaks that put a shiver down my spine.

The young actor playing the school bully, Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton), is in some ways more scary than Pennywise. He actually resembles him facially, which led me to some incorrect suppositions.

Henry terrorizes the other children with an enthusiasm that is much more familiar to me from my own childhood encounters. People always claim that bullies become bullies because they learned the behavior. I think that's true in some cases, but most kids who bully other kids do it simply because they enjoy it.

Other than the jump scares, my main complaint about "It" is the lack of first responders. At no point do any of the kids go to the authorities for help. Ben gets his stomach carved up by Bowers, and they don't even go to the hospital. And they never even attempt to bring in a adult to help them battle Pennywise.

I get that that's a theme of the piece -- how grown-ups turn a blind eye to abuse they see right in front of them. One of the most powerful momenst is a fleeting one, when Ben is being tortured by Henry's gang at the side of the road and some older folks drive right by, refusing to heed his cries for help. And the fact Henry's father is the town sheriff might make 13-year-olds hesitant to report a crime.

But at some point it just becomes too much. There's no trusted teacher they could confide in? Somebody's mom is a nurse or doctor? Has an uncle in the next town who's not infected by the Derry disease? My credulity was strained to the breaking point, and beyond.

Now let's talk about virgins. What's next is a spoiler for the book, but not the movie.

I've been told by reliable sources that the battle with Pennywise ends with all the boys having sex with Beverly. Something about bringing the group together, cementing their bonds in a time of duress. So the Losers' story concludes (for now) with a goddamn gangbang.

My understanding is the film's original director, Cary Fukunaga, wanted to preserve this sex sequence, and ended up leaving the project over creative differences. (He's still listed as a screenwriter.) I'm all for artistic vision, but having a movie end with a bunch of 13-year-olds lining up to screw the only girl in their group would be a death sentence.

Also, how heteronormative: couldn't the boys just have anal sex with each other to achieve the same end?