I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres and streaming including the musical psychological drama “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the comedy bio “Saturday Night” and the drama “White Bird.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: While recounting her life as a fugitive in Nazi-occupied France, hiding in the barn of a classmate, a grandmother (Helen Mirren) gives her troubled grandson a lesson in the importance of kindness and compassion.
CAST: R. J. Palacio, Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, Helen Mirren. Directed by Marc Forster.
REVIEW: “White Bird” wears its heart on its sleeve. An elegant retelling of Grandmère Sara’s story, which originated as a 2019 graphic novel of the same name by R. J. Palacio, it is an earnest testament to the power of imagination and kindness to overcome wickedness.
It’s a Holocaust story told from the point of view of two young people, Sara Blum (as played by Ariella Glaser) who is separated from her parents when the Nazi take over their town, and Julien Beaumier (Orlando Schwerdt) a compassionate youngster with polio who rescues her and hides her away in his parent’s barn. Their bravery in the face of events they can barely understand, let alone control, is moving as this pair of innocents are forced to grow up very quickly.
It’s in the other stuff that the film reveals its origins in young adult literature.
There are several scenes of brutality and violence as the Nazis invade the village and abduct young Jewish students, but director Marc Forster hasn’t made a war film. Instead, he’s made a plea to choose kindness over hatred set against the backdrop of World War II.
The result is a retrained, gently paced character driven tale in need of more urgency.
Forster does a good job of displaying how small gestures can remind us of our humanity in troubled times, but he allows thew cinematic aspects of the storytelling—for example, Sara and Julien’s imaginary travels as an antidote to the world around them—to slow the movie to a crawl.
Much of it looks lovely, and, as an act of kindness, those scenes are on theme, but the flights of fancy plod along, taking away from the more dramatic elements the story has to offer. Danger should hang over every second of Sara’s life, and yet, aside from a scene or two, here is no real sense of peril.
“White Bird” contains potent and timely “Vive l’humanité” messages about compassion—although they are expressed by French villagers, who, by and large, sound like posh BBC broadcasters—and is occasionally touching but doesn’t hit hard enough.
No one can play unlikable-with-a-hidden-heart-of-gold like Tom Hanks. Now in theatres, “A Man Called Otto,” is a sentimental Mean Old Man redemption movie that showcases the actor’s ability to transcend even the most predictable material.
When we first meet Otto Anderson (Hanks) he is the epitome of a grumpy old man. Recently retired, he spends his days making sure his neighbours in their suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania cul de sac obey community rules. According to Otto, his neighbours are idiots who don’t recycle properly and never display their parking passes. “The whole neighbourhood is falling apart these days,” he grumbles.
The recent passing of his life-long love, wife Sonya (Rachel Keller), has made him bitter, angry at the world. “Nothing works,” he says at her grave site, “now that you’re gone.”
Lost and despondent, he makes several attempts to take his own life and join Sonya in the after world, but is interrupted by circumstance or the loud knocking on his front door by his new neighbours, a young, vivacious Mexican-American family, parents Marisol (Mariana Treviño) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and their adorable kids.
With new life on the street, Otto slowly lets his guard down, opening up to the possibility of living life without Sonya.
A mix of sadness and hope, of tears tempered by laughs, “A Man Called Otto’s” path is predictable, but elevated by its two central performances.
As Otto, Hanks is a man damaged by life. Hard knocks have dented him, tamping down his true nature. What is left is a hard shell, dinged by circumstance, but rather than go full-grump, Hanks allows his softer side to seep through. That’s the thing that makes Otto human and not a caricature, and Hanks’s well-established nice-guy reputation goes a long way to keeping us on Otto’s side.
The film’s beating heart, however, is Treviño as Marisol. As a counterbalance to Ottos’s curmudgeonly behaviour, she is empathy and kindness personified. She radiates warmth, and eventually melts Otto’s icy façade.
“A Man Called Otto,” a remake of the Swedish film “A Man Called Ove” from director Hannes Holm, is a tearjerking story of redemption that tries a bit too hard to strum the heartstrings, but, thanks to the performances, still manages to find resonate, emotional moments.
“Don’t go getting all grown up on us.“ That’s the sentiment that hangs over “Christopher Robin,” a new film about regaining an intangible starring Ewan McGregor and Winnie the Pooh (voice of Jim Cummings), like a shroud.
The movie begins with 10-year-old Christopher Robin‘s going away party, just before he leaves for boarding school. His playmates, Piglet (voice of Nick Mohammed), Eeyore (Brad Garrett), Tigger (Cummings again), Owl (Toby Jones), Rabbit (Peter Capaldi), Kanga (Sophie Okonedo) and the honey loving bear have gathered to see him off from 100 Acre Woods, their home and Christopher’s escape from real life.
“I will never forget you Pooh,“ Christopher says, “even if I live to be 100 years old.“
But of course he does.
Like the quickly flipped pages of a story park the film rockets through Christopher’s boarding school, marriage, efforts in WWII and his difficulties after the war. Now a husband to Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and a father to Madeline (Bronte Carmichael), he has a job he doesn’t like and responsibilities that keep him away from his family.
Christopher Robin got all grown up.
When his boss instructs him to cut 20% of his operating budget Christopher is pushed against the wall. The frivolities of youth are pushed even further to the background until Pooh, looking for his friends and in search of honey, shows up in London with the grumbling tummy and some sage words of advice. “I’ve cracked,” says Christopher when his childhood friend shows up. “I’ve totally cracked. “I don’t see any cracks,” replies Pooh sweetly, “some wrinkles maybe.”
A mix of live action and CGI characters, “Christopher Robin” doesn’t allow the special effects to get in the way of the film’s message of staying young at heart. The stuffed animals—Winnie and friends—don’t feel like and excuse to sell toys. Instead they are given distinct and engaging personalities that move the story and the message forward. Cummings, who has voiced Winnie since 1988, brings real personality to the character, imbuing his elliptical speaking patterns with equal parts humour and melancholy. Pooh also causes some Paddington-style chaos in the Robin household, adding to the slapstick factor in a movie that toggles between heartfelt and farce.
There is an undeniable sense of loss and longing in “Christopher Robin.” Loss, in the form of a childhood innocence gone missing—“I’m lost,” says Pooh, “but I found you.”—longing in the efforts made to regain the connection to childlike wonder and, in Robin’s case, his own daughter Madeline. Children might not get it, although I’m sure they will enjoy the stuffed characters, but adults will understand the curious tale about the importance of old friends and embracing the inner child.
