It’s hard to know whether “Captain Fantastic,” a new drama starring Viggo Mortensen as a task master father raising a brood of philosopher kings in a forested paradise right out of Plato’s Republic, is a condemnation of the American Dream or parody of hippie ideals or both. By the time the unconventional family celebrates Noam Chomsky Day instead of Christmas it’s hard to know whether to giggle at the absurdity of the situation or cry at the earnestness of the film’s intent.
Mortensen is Ben, father of six, husband of Leslie (Trin Miller). They have made their home deep in the forest of the Pacific Northwest. As Leslie lies dying in a faraway hospital, Ben puts his kids through a boot camp of rigorous physical and intellectual training. They rock climb, participate in coming of age rituals, learn about quantum entanglement and at night sit around a campfire eating the days kill and reading books like “The Brothers Karamazov.”
They are a tight unit untouched by the outside world. Home schooled and trained the kids each speak six languages and are all, even the youngest ones, self sufficient, but is Ben helping or hurting the kids? Does his unwillingness to bend in his extreme opinions make him a caring father or a fascist who has not prepared his kids to be out in the world?
The answer to that question comes, sort of, when he makes an announcement. “Last night mommy killed herself. She finally did it. Your mother is dead and nothing is going to change.” A cross-country trip to Leslie’s funeral, a place where Ben is not welcome, makes him confront his ideas on parenting.
The most fantastic thing about “Captain Fantastic” is Mortensen’s performance. As Ben he is a plain spoken, rough-hewn man so convinced of his correctness he is willing to risk the lives of his children. Underneath the bluster, however, is a man who cares deeply about his family and his late wife. He’s a man of extremes—both in beliefs and actions—but his love and his grief are heartfelt, even if they are run through Ben’s unforgiving filter. Mortensen makes an unlikeable character likeable and that goes a long way to making the film enjoyable.
Otherwise the journey to Leslie’s final resting place is an occasionally bumpy ride. The feral kids speak Esperanto, pontificate on the US Constitution and sit, gobsmacked, at the sight of their first videogame and it is in these moments that parody seems to nudge its way into the storytelling. The hippie heaven Ben builds for his kids is less a nirvana than a cage to protect them from what he sees as the evils of the world. He teaches them to survive in the wild, but it seems unlikely any of them could survive a solo subway ride.
“Captain Fantastic” loses more steam in a rushed final act, but luckily Mortensen is there to keep it interesting.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that “Equals,” the new film starring Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult, was a zombie movie. Characters roam around aimlessly, mumble dialogue and stare at one another as though they’d like to take a bite out of one another.
But it’s not a zombie flick, it’s a high-concept sci-fi love against-all-odds story set in a utopian society where emotions don’t exist. IE, it’s 101 minutes of whispered words and blank stares.
“Equals” is takes place in a place where human emotions have been eradicated. It has resulted in a peaceful, if somewhat dull world. Like small town Ontario, everyone dresses the same and is unfailingly polite. The only disease they have been unable to remedy is S.O.S., a virus that eats away at their icy demeanours and restores their pleasure centers. In other words, it allows people to feel again. Illustrator Silas (Hoult) is infected with feelings, developing romantic thoughts for co-worker Nia (Stewart). She is also sick but undiagnosed. They begin an affair but when a cure is found their new-found feelings and romance are threatened.
Director Drake Doremus has set up an almost impossible situation for himself and his actors. Flat and unaffected, “Equals” is icy in the extreme. The only heat on display comes from several hand-holding sessions which, I suppose, are meant to melt the screen but honestly, there are Amish love stories with more sexual tension.
What could have been an exploration of the very core of what makes us human, a kind of star-crossed sci fi “Romeo and Juliet,” is instead a plodding look at two people experiencing late puberty.
It’s a shame, but perhaps not a surprise, that a movie that aims to sap the emotion out of most of its characters, is a bit of a slog.
Newfoundland director Stephen Dunn’s feature debut is an odd movie. “Closet Monster” pays tribute to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and features a talking hamster spirit animal voiced by Isabella Rossellini. It’s also a beautifully made, eclectic film that breathes new life into the coming-of-age-and-out-of-the-closet genre.
Oscar (played as a youngster by Jack Fulton) is a child of a broken home who witnessed a grim act of gay bashing which left a young man paralyzed from the waist down.
Years later memories of the violent attack and his father’s (Aaron Abrams) homophobia—when he asks his father why the boy was beaten, the old man says, “Because he’s gay.”—have left Oscar (now played by Connor Jessup) feeling repressed, as though being gay was something that should never be talked about, let alone acknowledged. An imaginative kid, he has aspirations of leaving Newfoundland, moving to New York and becoming a makeup artist for horror and fantasy movies.
As a teen when Oscar develops a crush on hardware store co-worker Wilder (Aliocha Schneider) he finds himself still scarred from the trauma of his youth. His conditioned response is to filter his newfound feelings through a blend of aggressive fantasy flashbacks. His friends, Gemma (Sofia Banzhof) and Buffy (a hamster voiced by Rossellini) help ground him as he searches to find himself.
Perhaps because the story is loosely autobiographical Dunn is able to take what may have been a gimmicky story—talking hamsters! Gory make-up fever dreams!—and ground it, if not exactly in reality, then in a world that feels heightened but authentic. He’s aided by a great, naturalistic performance from Jessup who manages to keep the character earthbound and relatable even when the story takes off on existential flights of fancy.
“Closet Monster” confronts its issues head on, whether it is death—“Your parents replaced me,” says Buffy, “like, four times.”—grappling with sexuality or homophobia and does so with style and guts.
“The Dark Stranger” is one of the rare horror movies that would probably work better if the horror elements were extracted, leaving just the underlying family drama to speak for itself.
Leah Garrison (Katie Findlay) is a comic book illustrator grappling with the suicide of her artist mother. Recovering from a nervous breakdown, Leah has hallucinations and cuts herself as punishment for what she believes was her part in her mother’s death. Old wounds are reopened when art lover Randall Toth (Stephen McHattie) asks Leah’s father (Enrico Colantoni) if he can present the late mom’s paintings in an exhibition showcasing artists who battled depression. Leah hates Toth and doesn’t want her mother’s work displayed in the show. Enter the Dark Stranger, a character from Leah’s recent work. The gaunt stranger might be a metaphor for her troubled state of mind or a physical manifestation of her demons or both. Either way the stranger is a destructive force on everyone around the young artist and just happens to look like Toth.
“The Dark Stranger” is an accomplished film for first time director and writer Chris Trebilcock. I’m just not sure it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. As a horror film with supernatural overtones it leaves a mildly eerie aftertaste. But as a look at mental illness and the life changing effects of depression it packs a wallop. Real true scares are few and far between and the final moments of the movie are a bit too on the money but very solid performances from Findlay, Colantoni and the legendary McHattie keep things moving forward in an interesting way.
Welcome to the House of Crouse. SPOILER ALERT! This week we have a show that reveals many secrets, so if you haven’t watched the fourth season of Orange is the New Black, please be careful and listen for our special Spoiler Alert Horn during the Samira Wiley interview. She talks about playing the prison drama’s much loved character Poussey Washington. Joining her is Danieils, a directing collective comprised of Daniel Scheinert and Dan Kwan. They talk about making Swiss Army Man, a movie about a farting corpse, and how it was a deeply personal experience for them. Stop by the House of Crouse, sit a spell. You’ll like it.
Richard and CP24 anchor Nneka Elliot talk about the weekend’s two big releases, “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” with Zac Efron, Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza and the animated kid’s flick “The Secret Life of Pets,” starring the voices of Louis C.K., Kevin Hart, Steve Coogan and Ellie Kemper.
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel to talk about the big releases in theatres, “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” with Zac Efron, Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza and the animated kid’s flick “The Secret Life of Pets,” starring the voices of Louis C.K., Kevin Hart, Steve Coogan and Ellie Kemper.
It’s hard to know whether “Captain Fantastic,” a new drama starring Viggo Mortensen as a task master father raising a brood of philosopher kings in a forested paradise right out of Plato’s Republic, is a condemnation of the American Dream or parody of hippie ideals or both. By the time the unconventional family celebrates Noam Chomsky Day instead of Christmas it’s hard to know whether to giggle at the absurdity of the situation or cry at the earnestness of the film’s intent.
