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.

Do You Hear the Actors Sing?

Review: Les Miserables

There was a time when musicals were in style, when tone-deaf actors were dubbed, when stage actors became legitimate Hollywood stars. These days have faded; I'd argue the last great movie musical was Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972). Les Miserables is respectable, neither subservient to every note of its source nor trying to reinvent a beloved property. But working with a smart adaptation and mostly game cast, director Tom Hooper kills some of the goodwill he dreamed.

For a romantic and bombastic poperetta like Les Mis (Miz?), the film alternates between sweep and intimacy. Hooper loads the opening sequence, following Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) as he leaves prison on parole, steals from a Samaritan, then atones for his sins, with disorientingly fast cuts and handheld camerawork. Later, he calms for Anne Hathaway's "I Dreamed a Dream," effectively repositioned after Fantine gives in to prostitution. In one unwavering shot, Hathaway effectively marries vocals and performance, starting fragile, ending angry. But Hooper's approach to this soliloquy -- an overbearing camera, mouth wide, tears tears tears -- is the same he uses for the other actors. The second female power ballad, "On My Own," is strangely truncated, and poor Samantha Barks as Eponine must sob through while the camera forces her down onto the rain-soaked pavement.

Four More Movies this Fall

I've been watching movies all autumn, and wanted to highlight a few worthy of mention. Get ready for more soon!

Anna Karenina
The first twenty minutes exhilarate: actors are thrust onto the stage of a dilapated theater, pulling on costumes, playing scenes before backdrops. But the peculiar intimacy of Joe Wright's take -- setting all of Anna Karenina in this one theater -- is lost when, more and more, the film abandons its own spatial logic. Konstantin Levin's endless ploughing of fields wouldn't work on a stage, Wright must have realized; but long interludes in the bright outdoors suggest the filmmakers weren't sure how to execute their conceit. If we can ignore the visual palate, Tom Stoppard's screenplay swiftly condenses the action, but the dialogue feels truncated. The cast is handsome, though some are fatally young. Keira Knightley reins in her usual instinct for high-strung petulance, and acquits herself well as a tremulous, willfully romantic Anna. Jude Law impresses by playing Anna's cuckolded husband, Alexei Karenin, with decency and affection. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is out of his league as Count Vronsky.
For Your Consideration: Jude Law (Supporting Actor).

Argo
They did what? Key to Argo's intrigue are the true-to-life twists and turns of a key moment in the Iran hostage crisis that hasn't been well-remembered. In the "Canadian Caper," Tony Mendez at the CIA launched a successful operation to rescue six diplomats from Tehran under the guise of a nonexistent science fiction film. Americans in November 1979 anxiously awaited a sequel to the breakaway hit Star Wars (maybe you've heard of it?). Sci-fi in Hollywood often reflected foreign-policy anxieties, from the aftermath of World War II to the rise of the Soviets and the space race. The specifics of Mendez's invented film (also named Argo) and rescue mission are already cinematic; Ben Affleck lets the story tell itself without over-dramatizing. Only the final airport showdown feels contrived. Could this be the next step in a major director career for Affleck? He's working with the best; the dynamic ensemble includes Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Tate Donovan. Argo sits confidently aside '70s films like The Conversation and All the President's Men, when films were shot on grainy stock, writers trusted politics to be suspenseful, and editors let actors explore without splicing every five seconds.
For Your Consideration: Best Picture; Ben Affleck (Director); Chris Terrio (Screenplay).