“Showing Up,” a new dramedy starring Michelle Williams and now playing in theatres, is like a swan. At first glance, it appear calm, cool and collected, but a closer look reveals it is peddling madly underneath the surface.
Set in Portland, Oregon, the story revolves around a week in the life of Lizzy (Williams), a sculptor struggling to prepare for an important show, one that could determine her future, despite the distractions of her day-to-day life. Her frayed nerves are put to the test when her passive-aggressive landlord, and fellow-artist, Jo (Hong Chau), refuses to fix the buildings hot water tank, thus making it impossible for Lizzy to shower. On top of that, Lizzy is stuck caring for a pigeon her cat Ricky seriously injured and left for dead, her co-worker Eric (André Benjamin, aka André 3000) left a piece in the kiln too long, causing it to crack.
Even her family stresses her out. Her mother (Maryann Plunkett), is also her boss at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, and her sculptor father (Judd Hirsch) is less than enthusiastic about her work and ambition. Her brother (brother (John Megaro) suffers with mental illness and spends his days digging a giant hole in his backyard.
“Showing Up” features the slow moving, leisurely pacing that has become writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s trademark. Lizzy’s world is revealed bit by bit, each obstacle adding to the growing anxiety as her opening night approaches.
It feels like watching a slow-motion car crash, but instead of the expected smash-up, the film gently uncovers how Lizzy’s devotion to her art is her lifeline. She lives an artistic life, connected to her community in ways that feed her creativity. Even the poor, broken pigeon finds a spot in Lizzy’s heart and helps transform her life in unforeseen ways.
Williams is a model of restraint, but finds way to add some light comedy into the character. Chau is a live-wire, adding some electricity to the film, even if her role is somewhat underwritten.
It would be easy to think that nothing much happens in “Showing Up,” and it is a quiet movie, but it is loud and proud in its declaration about the miracle of making art that matters while balancing the frustrations of everyday life.
Director Noah Baumbach has made idiosyncratic movies in the past like “The Squid and the Whale,” “Margot at the Wedding” and “While We’re Young.” But his new film, “White Noise,” an adaptation of the 1985 novel of the same name by Don DeLillo, now playing in theatres before moving to Netflix in December, may be his quirkiest to date.
Adam Driver is Professor Jack Gladney, a middle-aged college lecturer whose life’s work is the study of Adolph Hitler’s rise to power. He is a superstar in the world of academia, and a loving father to the blended family he shares with elaborately coiffed wife Babette (Greta Gerwig). In his quiet moments, however, he is obsessed with mortality, afraid that he will outlive his wife, and be left alone.
Babette, or “Babo” as the family calls her, also has a secret. She’s been taking an experimental drug, one that makes her forgetful and furtive.
In the second of the film’s three act structure, the family’s day-to-day lives are turned upside down when a nearby railway accident unleashes a toxic cloud over their town. Forced to evacuate and take shelter from the “Airborne Toxic Event,” they hit the road, and, in new circumstances, cracks in the family structure are revealed.
The final sequence manages to both tie up loose ends while taking the story in a completely new and unexpected direction toward murder, mortality and moral turpitude.
There is much to enjoy in “White Noise.” Gerwig and Driver seem born to recite Baumbach’s dialogue, bringing dry humor to the ever-escalating situations the Gladneys find themselves in. Lines that wouldn’t necessarily read as amusing on the page are brought to life by the delivery of these two perfectly cast actors. A third act back-and-firth between them, a cleaning of the air scene, is masterfully played, poignant and peculiar at the same time.
Baumbach also nails the 1980s time period, in both style and attitude, sharpening the satire with a vintage look that could have been borrowed from any number of contemporaneous sitcoms or big screen comedies. Also, this may be the one and only movie that can cite “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and “Barry Lydon” as stylaistic inspirations.
The look elevates the hectic family scenes, with everyone speaking over one another, wandering in and out of frame, like a mix of Robert Altman and “Family Ties.”
But, and I wish there wasn’t a but, a lack of cohesion between the film’s three sections gives it a disjointed feel, almost as if you’re watching a trio of short films with the same cast and characters. The clear-eyed lucidity of the opening act drifts as the running time sneaks toward the end credits. Once the movie leans toward the spectacle of the “Airborne Toxic Event” it loses its way, valuing the unwieldy, bewildering consequences of Jack and Bobo’s existentialism over clarity.
There are funny, satiric, enjoyable moments and performances in “White Noise,” but the initial suburban satire loses its way, succumbing to the busy script’s white noise.
When Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton, better known as Andre 3000 and Big Boi of the Atlanta-based hip-hop group Outkast, decided to branch out into film they didn’t look to MTV for ideas. Instead they cherry picked inspiration from a variety of sources such as Moulin Rouge, hip-hip culture, Warner’s cartoons, Six Feet Under and gangster movies of the 1930s, creating a frenetic fusion of old and new.
Idlewild, named for the Georgia town in which then action takes place, is both rooted in the past and very forward-looking. Hip-hop collides with jazz, dancers mix the jitterbug with break dancing and the star of this 1930s road show is a rapper. Think of it as a remix of The Cotton Club.
Set against the backdrop of a 1930s southern speakeasy, Benjamin and Patton play Percival and Rooster, friends since childhood, despite the differences in their personalities. Percival is the shy son of a mortician who plays piano at the speakeasy. Rooster on the other hand is the flamboyantly dressed star of the show who flirts with all the women in the movie except his wife. When a mob boss is slain by his underling (a terrific Terrence Howard) Rooster must take over the speakeasy and learn to do business with the violent and unreasonable gangster who now controls the flow of booze into the club. Meanwhile Percival falls for a beautiful new singer in the club, and comes out of his shell just in time for the violent and bloody finale.
Idlewild manages to skirt around my usual problem with musicals—people bursting into song at the drop of a hat is silly!—by setting most of the musical numbers in a Prohibition era speakeasy ironically called The Church. Here we get the movie’s strengths—spectacularly choreographed dance numbers mixing dance styles old and new, cool new retro-modern sounding music from Outkast, Macy Gray and newcomer Paula Patton and a rich and interesting visual pallet.
Good thing we have lots of eye and ear candy to distract us from the movie’s faults. Benjamin and Patton are sturdy performers, but their acting chops pale by comparison to their co-star Terrence Howard who owns the screen each time he steps into frame.
The script doesn’t do either of the neophyte actors any favors—it must have been tough for Benjamin to sing a love song to a corpse in his big screen debut—and is a bit of a hallucinatory mess—what did you expect from a former music video director?—but Idlewild’s energy, beauty and verve make up for its shortcomings.
