“Ordinary Angels,” a new faith-based film starring Hillary Swank and Alan Ritchson, and now playing in theatres, is an uplifting film about the virtues of not taking “no” for an answer.
Based on a true story, “Ordinary Angels” sees Ritchson, still pumped-up from playing former U.S. Army military policeman on Amazon Prime’s “Reacher,” as Ed Schmitt, the recently widowed single father of two preteen girls, Ashley (Skywalker Hughes) and Michelle (Emily Mitchell).
If it wasn’t for bad luck, Ed would have any luck at all.
“Have faith,” his mother (Nancy Travis) tells him.
“A lotta good faith is doing me,” he says.
Already drowning in debt from his late wife’s medical bills, Ed is also struggling with Michelle’s life-threatening liver condition. She will need a transplant, but finding a donor could take years, and until then, the medical bills will continue to pile up.
In another part of town, while Michelle waits for a new liver, Sharon Stevens (Swank), a brassy hairdresser with a drinking problem, is doing everything she can to ruin hers. She is bold, the kind of drunk who dances on (and falls off of) bars, and says “I ain’t great with boundaries.”
The morning after a bender, while buying beer at a local shop, a newspaper headline about Michelle’s dire condition grabs her by the heart. Uninvited, she shows up at Ed’s church as the preacher implores his flock to, “Find a way to help this family.”
Sharon trades her enthusiasm for drinking with fund-raising efforts to help Ed and his family dig themselves out of their financial hole. After she arrives at Ed’s home with an enveloped stuffed with $3000, he reluctantly accepts her assistance. “I’m good at a lot of things,” she says. “Taking ‘no’ for an answer isn’t one of them.”
Co-writers Kelly Fremon Craig (who recently wrote and directed the film adaptation of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret”) and Meg Tilly, lean on the details of true story from 1994 in linear fashion. So, there are no big surprises in “Ordinary Angels,” just compelling characters and a three Kleenex story.
Ritchson leaves Jack Reacher’s sarcastic brashness on the shelf to play Ed as a quiet, broken man who puts his family’s needs ahead of his own. Without time to properly grieve his late wife, he has tamped down his heartache as he carries the weight of the world on his very broad shoulders.
Swank gives Sharon a blustery shell that camouflages a troubled past. Her soured relationship with her adult son and alcoholism are confronted, but neither are fully explored. Sharon says she doesn’t like to talk about herself, but a bit more backstory may have fleshed out the psychology behind her extraordinary generosity. Still, Swank makes her forceful in an Erin Brockovich kind of way.
“Ordinary Angels” is formulaic—the highs are really high, the lows are really low—and the climatic race against time goes on too long to be truly exciting, but the film’s themes of the importance of community, of the healing power of kindness and of how one person can make a difference, may tug at the heartstrings.
“Perfect Days,” the new, Oscar-nominated film from director Wim Wenders, now playing in theatres, is a contemplative movie that examines the simple pleasures in life. Music, literature and nature are showcased, but this poetic, profound film celebrates finding contentment in all aspects of life.
Veteran Japanese actor Kôji Yakusho is Hirayama, an everyman who leads a quiet life made up of routine and simple pleasures. He wakes up at the same time each day, finds joy in reading poetry and his American punk rock cassette collection and takes pride in his work as a public toilet cleaner.
When he’s not on the clock, he enjoys a sandwich lunch at a local park, soaks at the local bathhouse and occasionally grabs a bite at his favorite restaurant.
His carefully calibrated life hits the occasional hitch when outsiders are added into the mix. An annoying co-worker named Takashi (Tokio Emoto) is always short of cash and his niece Niko (Arisa Nakano) suddenly arrives on his doorstep, upending his life and making him reflect on the past.
“Perfect Days” is not the kind of movie that benefits from a detailed synopsis. Wenders revels in the mundane; the little things that make up a day. It’s a joyful celebration of a quiet life, of finding pride in your work, of taking advantage of simple pleasures.
At the heart of the film is Yakusho. His unpretentious performance brims with empathy, compassion and the understanding of the minutia that makes up a successful, happy life. It’s a deceptively simple performance, but rich in its execution. Yakusho takes an unassuming character and brings him to vivid life by emphasizing the stillness and grace that exemplifies Hirayama, a man of few wants and great appreciations.
“Perfect Days” is a beautiful movie, a film in love with life. It’s a meditative slice-of-life that will leave you feeling better as the end credits roll than you did when you went to the theatre.
“Memory,” a poignant new drama now playing in select theatres and starring Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, is a difficult, delicate story about how the past impacts the present.
Chastain is Sylvia, a self-reliant social worker and overprotective single mother to Anna (Brooke Timber). Sober for a dozen years and counting, she wears her emotions on her sleeve, and when she isn’t working, she’s often at AA meetings, sometimes with Anna in tow.
The story kicks in when Sylvia reluctantly attends a high school reunion with sister Olivia (Merritt Wever). Sitting alone, she’s alarmed when a bearded stranger stares blankly at her, before sitting at her table. Unnerved, she bolts, with the man in pursuit. He follows her home to her rough Brooklyn neighborhood, parking himself outside while she hurriedly goes inside and bolts the door.
The next morning it’s revealed he is a middle-aged man with early onset dementia named Saul (Sarsgaard) who lives in a fancy townhouse with brother Isaac (Josh Charles) and niece Sara (Elsie Fisher). When Sylvia takes on the job of Saul’s caregiver, a relationship blossoms, as she confronts memories of her young life, while Saul strains to remember the day-to-day.
“Memory” is a simply rendered, quiet movie with powerhouse performances from Chastain and Sarsgaard. Director Michel Franco is a fly-on-the-wall, keeping the camera at arm’s length, with no fancy cinematography to distract from the performances. Ditto the soundtrack. Or, should I say lack thereof. Franco doesn’t manipulate emotion with music, save for repeated spins of Saul’s favorite song, Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
The no-frills approach is in service to the characters and the story. With no distractions, the narrative, which details sexual abuse and trauma, unfolds in an unexpectedly warm way. That is thanks to Chastain, who plays Sylvia with emotional bluntness and Sarsgaard, who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, who brings vulnerability to Saul, but never forgets his strength of character.
They share remarkable chemistry, and even when “Memory” drifts into implausibility, the story of two outsiders who find redemption in one another packs an emotional wallop.
“Freud’s Last Session,” a new drama starring Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode, documents imagined conversations between two of the most engaged minds of the twentieth century as they grapple with the greatest mystery of all time, the existence of God.
Set in 1939 England, Hopkins is the Father of Psychoanalysis, living in London after fleeing his Vienna birthplace as the Nazis marched in. A religious skeptic, he says, “I’m a passionate disbeliever who’s obsessed with belief.”
Goode plays Oxford don and author C.S. Lewis, a troubled World War I vet who reclaimed his lapsed belief in Christianity after facing the horrors of war. As he is diagnosed with terminal cancer, the atheist Freud invites Lewis in for a conversation regarding what happens after you die.
As Freud faces mortality, he is unbowed in his dismissal of Lewis’s “fairy tale of faith.” Lewis, who came to religion through trauma, literature and study, uses their time together to prove that true believers are not, as Freud labels them, imbeciles.
As their philosophical joust heats up–“Have you ever considered how terrifying it would be if you’re wrong?” asks Lewis—the story splinters to include subplots involving the codependent relationship between Freud and his devoted daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries), her closeted relationship with Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham (Jodi Balfour) and Lewis’s involvement with Janie (Orla Brady), his late best friend’s mother. These story shards and the odd flashback, open up the story, taking us outside Freud’s booklined study.
This war of words, set against a backdrop of the rise of war in Europe, is more contemplative than confrontational. It’s provocative material, expertly delivered by Hopkins and Goode, that recalls Hopkins’s back-and-forth with Jonathan Pryce in “The Two Popes.” Their verbal sparring reveals more about their personalities than the flashbacks, which often interrupt the story’s rhythm, rather than embellishment it.
“Freud’s Last Session” is based on the stage play of the same name by Mark St. Germain, and is the rare movie that doesn’t feel served by opening up the story. When it moves away from its two leads, it wanders, lessening the impact of their interaction.
Still, watching these two terrific actors bring these two titans to life on screen, even though they likely never met in real life, is time well spent.
“Blue Jean” is a new British period drama, set in 1988 at the time of Margaret Thatcher’s Section 28, that feels unsettling in its timeliness.
Set in working class Newcastle, and told against a backdrop of news reports detailing Prime Minister Thatcher’s Section 28, a new law which would “prohibit the promotion of homosexuality,” the movie stars Rosy McEwen as Jean Newman. She is a gay high school physical education teacher who is out in her day-to-day life, but closeted at work. “You have to create boundaries as teachers,” she says. “it’s part of the job. If anyone found out, I‘d never work again.”
Her off hours are spent at home or at the local gay/lesbian bar, a smoky pool hall where she can be open with girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes).
The line between her personal and profession life begins to fade when a new student Lois (Lucy Halliday) joins Jean’s class. As Lois navigates her way in unfamiliar surroundings, Jean encourages her to play basketball, but the newcomer is bullied before, during and after every game. Jean suspects Lois is a lesbian, but, despite Viv’s disappointment, doesn’t confide in her.
“What kind of example are you setting for her?” asks Viv. “How is that girl going to learn if she has a place in this world?”
When the underage Lois shows up at the local gay bar, Jean feels exposed; afraid that her secret will be revealed.
In an early scene in “Blue Jean” Jean asks her class if they know what “fight or flight means.” It is, she says, how the body responds before the brain has even thought about it. It is that flight response to Lois that informs jean’s initial reaction to being outed, before a wave of self-reckoning sweeps over her.
Vividly brought to life by McEwen, who makes her big screen debut here, Jean’s instinctual need to preserve her job conflicts with her heart. McEwan’s star-making performance guides the character through the self-recrimination, heartache and ultimately relief necessary to bring this low-key story to vibrant life.
“Blue Jean” is a harrowing but tender study in identity, that blends a personal story with a political and societal one. Set decades ago, it is unfortunately timely, given recent events, in its portrayal of oppression of rights and casual homophobia, but still, a quiet heartbeat of rebellion pulses within as Jean marches toward self-actualization.
“Riceboy Sleeps,” a new drama from Vancouver director Anthony Shim, and now playing in theatres, is a meditative study in the immigrant experience in Canada through the lens of a mother and son relationship.
Set in the 1990s, Choi Seung-yoon is So-young, a single-mother to Dong-Hyun (as a child played by Dohyun Noel Hwang, later, as a teen by Ethan Hwang), who moved to Canada from Korea following the death of her husband. Once in Canada, the better life she hoped for seems just out of reach.
At her factory job So-young faces discrimination and, at school Dong-hyun is teased because his lunches are different than the sandwiches everyone has in their lunch boxes. His teacher even anglicizes his name to David because she can’t properly pronounce Dong-hyun.
Life isn’t easy for them. Dong-hyun, who, trying to assimilate to his new home, dyes his hair blonde and wears blue contacts, is suspended from school for fighting, and turns to drugs.
Gradually mother and son drift apart, but when So-young receives life-changing news, they attempt to reconnect with one another and with their heritage on a trip to Korea.
“Riceboy Sleeps” occasionally dips into melodrama, but is remarkably effective in its portrayal of the isolation and frustration that envelopes So-young and Dong-hyun’s new life. It’s in the details, the small (and sometimes not so small) behaviors, that define their interactions with many co-workers, doctors and even Dong-hyun’s teachers. Director Shim smartly visualizes the cultural claustrophobia with a boxy aspect ratio that doesn’t open up until the Korean sequences.
The natural performances are particularly effective in the film’s intimate moments. A scene where So-young struggles to use a Korean-English dictionary understand her cancer diagnosis is as frustrating and tragic as it is heartbreaking.
Ultimately, it is the film’s central relationship, the mother/son bond, that gives “Riceboy Sleeps” its poignancy.
We’ve all seen boy and his dog movies about the deep relationship between humans and animals like “White Fang” and the simply named “Dog,” with Channing Tatum and a Belgian Malinois.
“Blueback,” a new Australian family picture starting Mia Wasikowska and now playing in theatres, mines similar territory, but this time it’s the story of a girl, her blue groper and the love of the ocean.
Wasikowska Is marine biologist Abby who grew up exploring the ocean around the coast of her Western Australian childhood home. “We were born in the water,” says her mother Dora (Elizabeth Alexander).
When Dora suffers a debilitating stroke that leaves her unable to speak, Abby returns home. Hoping a return to the sea will aid in Dora’s recovery, they travel to the coast.
From here, the story toggles between Abby’s childhood and the discovery of a rare blue groper—the Blueback of the title—that inspired the eco-activism that shaped her life, and the present day.
“Blueback” is a well-intentioned but heavy-handed film that mixes-and-matches mother and daughter dynamics with messages about the fragility of marine environments and the importance of conservationism. The movie’s main thrusts are intertwined and, unfortunately, over explained. Repetition and excessive exposition blunt the movie’s mission somewhat, despite fine performances from Wasikowska and Radha Mitchell, who plays Dora in the flashbacks.
The film’s storytelling deficiencies, however, are alleviated somewhat by beautiful underwater photography and the urgency of the conservation messaging.
In “Juniper,” a quiet intergenerational family drama from New Zealand and now playing in theatres, a grandmother and grandson bond over the regrets and difficulties of their lives.
Charlotte Rampling stars as Ruth, an English, boozy ex-war photographer, who decides to recuperate from a badly broken leg at her estranged son’ Robert’s (Marton Csokas) home outside Auckland. Although wheelchair bound, she has an almost unquenchable taste for alcohol, a sharp wit and, she says, the desire to have one last great romantic fling.
When her seventeen-year-old grandson Sam (George Ferrier), still stinging from the death of his mother, returns home to find the seventy-six-year-old woman living in his house, he isn’t pleased at the prospect of having to look after her, even with the help of a live-in nurse (Edith Poor).
The pair get off to a rough start, but as time passes, one life wilts while the other begins to blossom.
“Juniper” is a poignant, if predictable, movie about connection. As Ruth and Sam parse their differences, working through the accumulated regret that scarred their lives, the two form an unlikely bond. The circumstances of their situation may be unique—the setting etc—but the story arc itself isn’t.
We’ve seen this kind of coming-of-age story before but Ferrier and Rampling bring the characters alive in a way that plucks at the heartstrings. Low key performances emphasize Ruth and Sam’s internal conflicts, but it Rampling who commands the screen. Ruth is a regal, complex character and Rampling makes her compelling, if not exactly warm, with a winning mix of stillness and feistiness.
“Juniper” takes some time to get where it is going, but once invested in this odd couple, the familiar story beats fade and the strength of the relationship takes over, making for a more interesting ride to the film’s predictable conclusion.
“The Son,” director Florian Zeller’s follow-up to the Oscar winning “The Father,” is the story of a fractured family and a son struggling with mental illness.
The drama, adapted for the screen by Christopher Hampton from Zeller’s stage play, involves Peter (Hugh Jackman), a high-flying New York City lawyer with political aspirations. He is the father of 17-year-old Nicholas (Zen McGrath) and ex-husband of Kate (Laura Dern), but has rebooted his life, marrying Beth (Vanessa Kirby), a much younger woman who is the mother to their baby, Theo. Peter has a new baby and a new life that doesn’t leave much room for his older son.
When Nicolas begins skipping school, acting out and cutting himself as a way to channel his pain, Kate asks if Peter can step up and give the boy some guidance and a place to stay. “He needs you Peter,” she says. “You can’t abandon him.”
Life is weighing Nicholas down. “I can’t deal with any of it,” he says. “I want something to change, but I don’t know what.”
With Nicolas in the spare room, Peter attempts to “fix” him, searching for an explanation for his son’s behavior, trying to be a better father to the teen than his own father, played by Anthony Hopkins, was to him. An unapologetically bad father, Hopkins snarls, “Your daddy wasn’t good to you or your mama. Who cares? Get over it.”
“The Son” is the story of intergenerational trauma, of the sins of a father (Hopkins is despicable in a fiery cameo) being visited upon his son and grandson, and a child’s cry for help.
Compassion abounds in “The Son,” and Jackman astounds wit work that is tinged with vulnerability, tragedy and guilt, but the script offers few surprises. Zeller telegraphs the film’s biggest moments, as if he doesn’t trust the audience to follow along. Those early revelations mute the story’s emotional power, despite the fine, compassionate performances.
There are compelling moments in “The Son.” A showdown between Peter and Nicholas packs emotional heft, and Jackman’s struggle to understand his son’s acute depression is tempered with equal parts empathy and frustration.
Jackman delivers a remarkable and authentic portrait of a desperate father in a well-intentioned film, that, by and large, feels manipulative by comparison.
