Short Take: "Young Adult" and "A Dangerous Method".

The biggest problem with all of Jason Reitman's movies is that his characters never humanize the nifty, clever concepts they represent. Juno for example, never really was more than a smart-ass teenager who failed sex-ed, Ryan Bingham from Up in the Air failed to becomes something more than a symbol of the recession and  his female sidekicks in that one, were flat portrayals of society's insistence that women must play either whores or ice-queens. 

It results pleasantly surprising then to find a real human being in what posed to be Reitman's most artificial character yet. Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) had all the potential to become a caricature: a beautiful but emotionally hollow divorcee, who writes young adult fiction and decides to visit her hometown just to get her high school boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) back.

Yet what Theron does defies expectations of both the character and the actress' own ability to use her beauty to construct an even more beautiful performance. Mavis is quite an ugly person, she drinks too much, holds contempt for everyone she knows and seems to have no regard whatsoever for anything or anyone that isn't her. As written by Diablo Cody, Mavis has remained trapped in eternal adolescence, she is the ultimate "mean girl". As played by Theron she is a flawed human being who has earned a right to be this way. The actress doesn't look for easy explanations, other than the fact that Mavis is truly a unique person who can not be defined by societal standards. It's a pleasure to see Theron, for once, collaborating with her extraordinary physique; she doesn't hide it under makeup, prosthetic pieces or miner wear, she owns up to it in such a way that during the movie's most tender scene, she actually allows herself to be "ugly" selfconsciously. She also displays a knack for comedic timing (she and Patton Oswalt make the most unique comedy duo of 2011) and if anything else, she proves that the best acting comes from within. Check out the last scene in this movie, you never get to hate and love someone this much.

Christopher Hampton's screenplays often boast astonishing literary pedigree and more often than not feel almost too pompous in their achievements. While this might've worked perfectly for the nihilist seducers of Dangerous Liaisons it truly feels misguided in A Dangerous Method, a film that like Liaisons and Atonement, features a fascinating menage a trois through which the author explores the darkest desires of the human mind.
The issue is that this time around, the characters are real life people and quite notorious for that matter. The plot centers on the relationship between Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) and her psychoanalysts: Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Spielrein goes from being Jung's patient, to becoming his mistress which leads to melodramatic consequences and her eventual treatment with Freud.
For decades, David Cronenberg has been one of the most consistent researchers of what moves human sexuality and what desire consists of. It makes sense then that he would try to get to the essence of it by studying the men who obsessed over this as much as he did.
If Cronenebrg movies prove something is that the erotic element can be completely removed from intercourse and added to different elements. "Pleasure is never simple" adds one of the characters in this movie and the truth is that Cronenberg has been much more successful in exploring the complicated turns of sexuality in movies like Crash and even A History of Violence which successfully links the thrill of crime with the jolt achieved during an orgasm.
The film feels too polished for the subject it explores and its intellectualism is too often stalled by Hampton's excessive theatricality (the screenplay was based on his eponymous play). Perhaps the problem is that the movie is stuck between wanting to be a biopic and an auterist essay. Needless to say so, the cast is truly extraordinary with Mortensen creating a Freud for the ages. The actor infuses the famed analyst with his knack for knowing more about a character than he lets the audience knows. Watching his subtly passionate attempt to convince Jung of his beliefs is a true joy to watch and considering he could've spent the movie smoking cigars and mimicking Freud, his performance taps into something far more extraordinary.
The movie however owes itself to Knightley's brilliant work who as Spielrein gives the best performance of her career. Allowing her body to transform itself as Sabina endures the pain of her disorder, the actress disappears only to then blossom as her character finds new hope through intellectual development.

Grades
Young Adult ***
A Dangerous Method ***

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Unlike the rest of the planet I don't want to have Ryan Gosling's babies but I'm loving the old-school masculinity he brings to this new poster for Drive.

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn who won the mise-en-scene prize at Cannes the film is a throwback to B movies and macho films so the poster embodies this effectively. Gotta love the unashamedly tacky pink font and Gosling's dirty look. I wasn't a fan of Refn's last film but this one seems quite promising.

Is this really the best they could come up with? They should've at least tried to do something like the cup and two faces psych trick. This is just so blah.

Kudos to whoever decided Keira Knightley's delicate frame looked so big it seems she can kick Viggo and Fassy's asses.

What's your take on these? Crazy to see Keira kick some Freudian ass?

The Road **1/2

Director: John Hillcoat
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smith-McPhee, Charlize Theron
Robert Duvall, Molly Parker, Guy Pearce, Michael K. Williams

After an unexplained cataclysm almost destroyed the planet, a man (Mortensen) and his son (Smith-McPhee) try to survive among the last remains of humanity.
They have to hide from people who became cannibals, look for food and find a way to get to the Gulf Coast where they think they will be safe.
Along the way they encounter several characters and problematic situations that force them to analyze if staying alive is really worth the risks.
Their only weapon is a gun with two bullets which they planned to use on each other upon reaching an extreme case.
Trying hard to be more than an apocalyptic "Paper Moon" the plot worries less about the lead characters' surroundings than about their relationship and how familiar traditions like father/son dynamics might be the only things that survive doomsday.
We see as the boy tries hard to grasp the loss of a world he never knew (he was born days after the tragedy began) and how the father copes with the memory of his wife (Theron) and how she chose death over life in a decaying world.
"Each day is more gray than the day before" narrates Mortensen even if we the movie was shot in a muddy palette by Javier Aguirresarobe which gives it a sense of dirtiness which inevitably makes us think that this is done with the eventual intention of purification on director Hillcoat's part.
The movie suffers from serious tonal unbalance as it travels from road movie with thriller elements, to intimate drama without ever justifying its choices.
Its most distressing problem lies on how much it tries to be a book. The screenplay was adapted from Cormac McCarthy's award winning novel and even if you haven't read it, you know the characters and actions were extracted from a novel.
The too poetic narration for example creates a weird separation between how Mortensen's character sees the world and how he refers to it.
More than haunting verses, his storytelling hints of insanity. When these words are paired with golden flashbacks involving Theron the film drifts to a place that isn't justified emotionally by the characters but suggests two different movies were made and then pasted together.
It's good that Mortensen gives a performance with enough power to distract us from the screenplay's inconsistencies.
He gives this man a tragic soul and most of his work is done with his eyes that peek from behind a huge beard and dirt. The man doesn't need big lines to evoke loss, despair and his immense love for the child.
Smith-McPhee comes off a bit obnoxious at times, but his performance makes sense given that he clings to his father and demands him to teach him all he needs to know.
The scenes where they just eat together and share seemingly insignificant moments are the ones where the whole movie is at its best.
Sadly Hillcoat never explores elemental things like why they have fought to stay alive for so long in a world that obviously won't last long.
The repercussions of such existential questions could've sparked debates of hope and human pride, but in "The Road" they are just as mysterious as the planet's destruction.
"Whoever made humanity will not find humanity here" says an old man (played brilliantly by Duvall) and hard as it tries the same can be said about this too mechanical movie.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(Peter Jackson, 2001)

When Sam (Sean Astin) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) decide they will leave the fellowship behind and go to Mordor on their own I couldn't believe it.
When minutes later the screen just faded to black and "directed by Peter Jackson" appeared my jaw fell to the floor.
Before entering the theater that December afternoon almost eight years ago, I had an inkling of what J.R.R. Tolkien's books were all about (although I'd ignored my father's advice that I read them since I was a child).
However I wasn't expecting for a movie cliffhanger to be like the ones on TV. Sometimes we have to wait a few months to know what our favorite characters will go through, but a whole year?
And when it had been this damn good!
Of course during the next two years I always attended the first screening of each chapter on the day of the premiere and in the meantime obsessed about the books (read the three and "The Hobbit" in a few weeks), the music and the Oscars they stacked.
I still am pissed about Ian McKellen losing his Oscar...
But the movies worked on more than a personal level, they reminded me of cinema's ability to take us back to a prime state of wonder, almost like being a child where you just can't believe what you're watching and are too fascinated to start wondering the machinations behind it.
The movies, not so surprisingly, became a sort of tradition in my house for half the decade. We would religiously watch the previous chapter(s) before going to bed and running to the theaters the next day to see the new one.
"The Return of the King" premiered here on a Christmas day (the only one of the trilogy they didn't open on the worlwide premiere) and it truly was the best present anyone-OK a film buff mostly-could ask for.
Now that the decade is over I look back and realize that most of the images I have from this movie don't correspond to the final, awards laden, chapter, but to its humble start which tremulously came to the world and changed it forever.