Summer Movies to Watch #1: Frances Ha

You know that best friend you almost want, but secretly wouldn't let meet your parents? Inside Noah Baumbach's framework of a typical "Brooklyn indie," where vaguely recognizable 20-30-somethings hold inferior jobs and wonder where their lives are going, is a fresh take on the manic dream girl. In this film, not such a dream. Greta Gerwig's Frances looks older than she is and acts younger. She bursts into play-fights with her friends on the sidewalk; she takes an impromptu weekend to Paris and charges it to a junk-mail credit card.

For all its familiar notes, Frances Ha captures that moment when we near adulthood and resist it. Baumbach and Gerwig, who co-writes and stars, call out every new apartment Frances lives in like a sad Craigslist travelogue. Her hopes are easily deflated: When she rushes home from Paris to make a Monday meeting with the head of the dance company, her boss admits she almost canceled. Paris isn't great to Frances, either; the city has never seemed lonelier. We're used to discomforting characters these days; as much as Baumbach wants to make the next black-and-white Manhattan, he can't avoid the influence of Girls. 

Some of Baumbach's previous films were too cerebral (The Squid and the Whale) or too unpleasant (Greenberg) for my tastes. Frances isn't maladjusted as much as fiercely independent, and often spontaneously funny. But underneath the comedy, I had the very real concern that Frances can't tough it forever in the city. Adulthood feels more like an enemy than an opportunity. New Yorkers are trying harder than ever these days, and getting nowhere.

"Be careful, Martha, I'll rip you to pieces."

Review: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Booth Theater, New York

March 2, 2013

The Real Housewives have nothing on George and Martha's all-night ragers. Watching Pam McKinnon's assured revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, we are unflinching voyeurs at these recognizable middle-class disillusions: stalled careers, failed pregnancies, loveless marriages. Fifty years later, Edward Albee's twist ending packs more suspense than any commercial break cliffhanger on Bravo. More than most plays, Virginia Woolf is probably indestructible. Here, just when the staging and set (where Todd Rosenthal cleverly stacks books in the fireplace) seem conventional, the actors increase the stakes.

Tracy Letts reinvents George. This overworked college professor (forties, but looking older) is positively energized by intimidation. In a round of "Get the Guests," he becomes an intellectual bully, always with a sharper wit, a more vicious tongue. With Letts in command, George's cruel streak comes through: Martha first brings up their son, "the apple of our eye," but George pulls him into the open, turns him into a tawdry parlor game yielding years of tamped-down anger. It's a surprising performance.

These Are My Friends. See How They Glisten.

Review: The Glass Menagerie
American Repertory Theater, Cambridge
February 19, 2013

"The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic."

As John Tiffany's Cambridge production of The Glass Menagerie opens, we're already lost in fantasy. Set designer Bob Crowley places the Wingfields' New York walk-up on a sea of reflective blackness, with a fire escape rising to the heavens. Tennessee Williams's elegiac words pause for movement: characters stare over the edge of the stage, faces lit up, sometimes reaching out. These interludes aren't always clear, but they feel right.

Otherwise, Tiffany's production stays close to the text. Cherry Jones is no fragile, fading violet as Amanda. And she couldn't be more right: indomitable and often funny. This Amanda will not let the world get her down. She sees promise in that great abyss. Zachary Quinto's Tom may be too contemporary (his gayness is never in question), but he's hot-blooded and full of bile, eschewing the idea that Tom should be passive or distant.

For me, the play hinges on the Gentleman Caller. Celia Keenan-Bolger and especially Brian J. Smith are moving as Laura delicately opens up to Jim, in the intimacy of candlelight. Smith enters the Wingfield apartment with an overcompensating charm, wincing behind Amanda's back at her every excess. But his braggadocio fades into empathy for Laura, his feelings as surprising to him as to her. He's almost in tears after kissing Laura; I'd guess he's never shared a moment this unflinching with Betty, his fiance. Keenan-Bolger's Laura speaks in an adolescent whisper, with a limp that's barely noticeable. Her imagination has grossly magnified her condition. But that same imagination has transformed a few pieces of glass (the audience sees only one) into an obsession and a refuge. Cherry Jones said in an interview she has to believe Laura does indeed marry. If not, the play's too sad. And why not leave the theater with one flicker of hope?

This Season in Comedies: Matthew McConaughey Edition

Bernie
In 1996, mortician Bernie Tiede shot rich, reclusive Marjorie Nugent four times in the back, buried her with the frozen vegetables, then covered up her death for months. The discovery of her body and subsequent murder trial brought infamy to Carthage, Texas, with pro-Bernie supporters protesting his arrest and trumpeting his compassion and goodwill in the community.

Richard Linklater's Bernie recounts the stranger-than-fiction story with more accuracy and humor than most true-crime movies. This black comedy lampoons small town life without condescension: Linklater casts actual Carthage townsfolk who chime in colorfully about Marjorie and Bernie's peculiar companionship. Did she keep him around for a late-in-life romance? Was his use of her money embezzlement? Jack Black, with his enormous energy and vulgarity, surprises with a subtle performance that lets us feel for Bernie. We wait for Black's trademark devilish grin to creep in, never sure how much to trust Bernie's good heart. I got a kick out of Matthew McConaughey as an unconvinced police officer. Linklater doesn't sanctify or condemn, but lets the strange doings in Carthage speak for themselves.

For Your Consideration: Richard Linklater (Director); Jack Black (Actor); Matthew McConaughey (Supporting Actor).

The Paperboy
"If anyone's gonna piss on him, it's going to be me. He don't like strangers peeing on him."

So begins the now legendary scene where Nicole Kidman, Southern vampy in a bleached blonde wig, saves paperboy Zac Efron from jellyfish stings. Kidman's game, but this ludicrous golden shower shifts an already lurid bayou thriller into the swampland of unintentional comedies. I have to believe Lee Daniels created the movie he expected to make: overwrought, deep-fried, mass-market paperback shlock. The highly sexual set pieces are clearly Daniels's raison d'etre, from an endlessly shirtless Efron swimming or dancing in wet briefs to a no-touch double masturbation in prison between Kidman and despicable convict John Cusack. Meanwhile, Macy Gray narrates some less interesting story of a murder investigation and the racism and corruption that are uncovered. And when our innocent paperboy (Efron, trying but vapid sharing scenes with real actors) finally beds Kidman, Daniels omits the entire lovemaking. Why be prudish now? Was it in Efron's contract? Matthew McConaughey report: Another effective, heavily sweaty role in a year that reinvented his career.

For Your Razzie Consideration.

Bullets or Ballots

Review: Lincoln + Django Unchained

Two of the most watchable movies of 2012 concern slavery. While one documents a moment of national importance, the other invents a sprawling revenge story. Both films are also prone to directorial overindulgence.

Lincoln

Daniel Day-Lewis simply is Abraham Lincoln. With his uncanny knack for transformation, Day-Lewis (more than most actors) uses his disguise as a way into the character: the beard and gray hair dye, the soft high-pitched voice, the crotchety but nimble walk. His Lincoln is a sage old storyteller and a dignified leader. How could he be otherwise in a Steven Spielberg movie? But screenwriter Tony Kushner is sly and writes the pricklier aspects of Lincoln, from an occasional vulgar anecdote to his troubled relationship with his son and with his wife. Sally Field, who hasn't had a good film role in years, doesn't shy away from a caustic, desperate Mary Todd Lincoln. Her Mary is deeply wounded by the loss of their son, but still determined to prove herself to the men's club of Washington. And what a men's club: The cast list is a who's-who of actors. I especially enjoyed James Spader, Jared Harris, and the scene-stealing Tommy Lee Jones.

The climate is war, and the political discourse is slavery. Lincoln covers the battle brewing inside the House of Representatives over the Thirteenth Amendment. Kushner's taut script reportedly was whittled down from drafts that chronicled Lincoln's whole life. The end result is some of his most focused writing, with an energy to the dialogue that separates Lincoln from PBS-pledge drive historical fare.