I'm kicking off the season with two films about the most topical of events: the onset of the financial collapse, and the elections to restore faith in American institutions.
Review: Margin Call + The Ides of March
"These people have no idea what's about to happen," Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) says as he gazes out the windows of his investment firm. The office is a fishbowl: everyone under scrutiny from the outside, trapped in a bubble. The employees watch through glass doors as layoffs pick up, and everyone's on the lookout for a scapegoat.
But as Sullivan's research that the company has borrowed more than it can chew rises higher in the company, so does the realization that nobody knows how they got here. The firm calls in CEO John Tuld (an unsurprisingly villainous Jeremy Irons), and he begs Sullivan to explain the problem in plain English. One of the film's running jokes is pointing out the increasing ineptness at the top of the office chain: "I don't get any of this stuff," Tuld admits.
Director and writer J.C. Chandor moves Margin Call forward with focused velocity. He keeps the atmosphere claustrophic, confined to board rooms, offices, and technical financial lingo that lay viewers never have a real chance to parse. All the vocabulary hits us too quickly, and appropriately so. Even the morning sunrise portends the impending collapse more than the inkling of hope. Even timely material like this wouldn't be as riveting if it didn't take a step back. Chandor lets us emphathize with these blindsided leaders; for all their corporate greed, they're as clueless as the rest of us.
We don't feel bad, of course. One man breaks down his salary until nearly $70 thousand is left over, just for booze and hookers. But it helps that there's such a good cast: Zachary Quinto's furled brow is the intelligent minion at the center of the beehive, with convincing, non-showy performances from Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, and Stanley Tucci.
The Ides of March, on the other hand, fools us at first into thinking that politicians are nice guys. We believe financial institutions are soulless and corrupt, but George Clooney's presidential candidate Mike Morris is a Democrat's dream Obama 2.0. He's beautifully spoken, well-answered, polished but still spontaneous. But when trusted staffer Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) discovers the secrets of the man behind the curtain, he starts to get his political sleeves dirty.
Though higher profile, this film still feels like a passion project for Clooney. In addition to his supporting role (where he switches behind the public and private self at the turn of a coin), he directed, co-authored the screenplay with Grant Heslov and original playwright Beau Willimon, and pulled seemingly every actor on board not involved with Margin Call. Gosling's enigmatic persona fits his character well; it's hard to tell how deep into the muck he'll let himself sink, and the desperation is always near the surface.
Much of the initial conflict revolves around Evan Rachel Wood's alluring intern (need I even suggest a spoiler alert?). You get the sense these twists have played out before, and we definitely haven't forgotten the morality debates and media frenzy of the Clinton administration. So while the ensemble is top-notch, the film doesn't offer new truths, or even a sense of fly-on-the-wall excitement. I even felt it ended too soon, when Clooney et al. could have gone further over the top. But these are tried and true politics, so if you don't catch it at the theater, you might on CNBC.
2 comments:
While I am also very interested in your movie reviews, I mainly just wanted to point out that "hot enough to boil bunnies" is one of the most disturbing phrases I have ever heard.
Hah. An upsetting reference, I suppose, to Fatal Attraction, i.e. Glenn Close, i.e. potential contender in this year's Oscars.
I hope you are still sleeping at night.
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