A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at “Fifty Shades Freed,” “Permission” with Rebecca Hall and the meta-movie romance “Entanglement.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard and CP24 anchor Nathan Downer have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the continuing and endless erotic (ish) adventure of the “Fifty Shades Freed” gang, the sorta-kinda-rom-com “Permission” with Rebecca Hall, the meta-movie romance “Entanglement” and the mockumentary “Fake Blood.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Jennifer Burke to have a look at the weekend’s big releases, the erotic (ish) adventure “Fifty Shades Freed,” the sorta-kinda-rom-com “Permission” with Rebecca Hall, the meta-movie romance “Entanglement” and the mockumentary “Fake Blood.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“Entanglement” stars “Silicon Valley’s” Thomas Middleditch as a man who almost finds fulfillment with a woman who was almost his sister.
When we first meet Benjamin Layten he is at his lowest point. Recently divorced from a woman he still loves he attempts suicide, only to be rescued by a courier and his neighbour Tabby (Diana Bang). Dour and darkly funny—“Do you like yourself?” he’s asked. “As a friend?” he replies. “Or as a friend with benefits?”—he is adrift, unhappy and looking for answers.
To get to the bottom of his gloomy mood he maps out all the bad things that have happened to him—i.e. “Dropped on my head at mom’s pool party.”—in an elaborate attempt to see pinpoint where he went wrong in life. It’s not until he discovers his parents adopted a baby girl and then gave her back that he sees some light in the darkness. “We’re going to find out who this girl is,” he tells Tabby, “and see if she can fix my life.”
Thinking that having a sister would have made him feel less awkward—“She’d would have taught me how to talk to girls and how to dance.”—he begins his quest and almost immediately tracks her down. Hannah (Jess Weixler) is an adrenaline junkie who shoplifts, can pick any lock on any door and lives just a few blocks away. They meet, they hit it off and soon become romantically involved. (SPOILER ALERT!!!) But is she the girl of his dreams or a girl in his dreams?
“Entanglement” is a neurotic rom com that starts off promisingly as a dark comedy but then falls too in love with its premise. Striking visuals and nice performances from Middleditch and Weixler—he’s a sad sack, she’s a sparkplug—can’t cover up a script that leans to heavily on the idea of Quantum Entanglement—particles that are apart yet connected (romantic, right?)—and not enough on allowing the characters to behave like real people. The quirk factor is dialled up rather high as though this was an unproduced script left over from the Manic Pixie Dream Girl heyday of the late 1990s.
The moments of “Entanglement” that work, really work, teasing the promise of a better movie. As it is the scant 85-minute running time is padded with too many musical montages that leaves us simultaneously wanting more and less.
The old song says the look of love is in your eyes, but a new movie starring Anette Benning and Ed Harris suggests otherwise. In this movie the look of love is in the genes.
Love makes you do strange things. Gareth (Ed Harris) was the love of Nikki’s (Annette Bening) life. They led a charmed life, with a beautiful daughter (Jess Weixler) until in a terrible twist of fate, he was drowned while on vacation. The suddenness of his passing left Nikki with no closure until five years later when she catches a glimpse of Tom (Harris again), who is a real live dead ringer for her late husband.
She charms him and soon they are in love, or are they? Nikki never tells Tom about his resemblance to Gareth raising the question, Is she in love with Tom or a memory?
“The Face of Love” is a grown up look at grief, love and aging.
There will be as many reactions to Nikki ‘s actions as there are audience members. Is she a selfish conniver, a grief stricken widow or one brick short of a load? She sincerely says things like, “I’ve always loved you,” which in context, is open to a variety of interpretations.
The movie allows for interpretation, and regardless of your take, AB’s performance is so raw and vulnerable it’s difficult to completely condemn her behavior.
Harris is an open book–“I could take a bath in how you look at me,” he coos–and coming to grips with aging–which he describes as “walking backwards into the sunset. Thinking about the good times… and the bad times.”–as he loses his heart to her. It’s a nimble, warm, endearing performance and its great to see Bening and Harris spark off one another.
“The Face of Love” also features good work from Robin Williams as a lovesick neighbor but the star of the show are Nikki ‘s unresolved feelings that haunt every frame.
