“Ferrari,” director Michael Mann’s long gestating look at the summer of 1957 and the existential crisis that plagued Italian motor racing pioneer Enzo Ferrari, both personally and professionally, goes flat out, even when it isn’t on the racetrack.
When we first meet Ferrari (Adam Driver) he is a cultural hero in Italy, but his company and marriage are falling apart. His advisors tell him he must take on a partner, like Ford or Fiat, and
Increase his consumer car sales by four times if he hopes to stay afloat. Trouble is, Ferrari wants complete control of his company, and that means no partner and concentrating on race cars, not street vehicles.
At home, his infidelity pushes his wife Laura (Penélope Cruz) to extremes. She doesn’t care if he sleeps around, just so long as nobody knows about it. When he arrives home after the maid has served coffee, Laura expresses her displeasure by taking a potshot at him with a gun she carries for protection. That is, unfortunately, the extent of the passion left in the marriage.
Unbeknownst to Laura, who is grieving the loss of their young son, Enzo has a long-term relationship, and has fathered a son, with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley), a woman he met, and fell in love with, during the war. As their son’s baptism approaches, Lina wants to know if the child will carry the name Ferrari, but Enzo has other things on his mind, like the imminent collapse of his company.
His financial advisor Giacomo Cuoghi (Giuseppe Bonifati) suggests entering the grueling, 1000-mile open road race, the Mille Miglia. A win would establish Ferrari supreme over their main rival Maserati, and hopefully encourage sales. “Win the Mille Miglia, Enzo,” Cuoghi says. “Or you are out of business.”
Working from a script by Troy Kennedy Martin, who wrote 1969s “The Italian Job,” Mann’s film feels like two movies on one. On one hand there’s the drama with Laura, Lina and the company. On the other is a piercing look at the dangerous world of racing, circa 1957. “It is our deadly passion,” Enzo tells racers Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone), Peter Collins (Jack O’Connell), and Piero Taruffi (Patrick Dempsey). “Our terrible joy.”
The racing scenes are exciting, shot with verve and style, with a couple of unexpected turns (literally) that vividly capture the dangers of racing. But the racing scenes feel conventional when stacked up against the more complex portraits of Enzo and Laura.
Driver plays Enzo as a charismatic man of action, a physically imposing person haunted by the voices of those who have gone before him, his father, his son and racing colleagues taken too soon. It reveals a rich inner life hidden by his stolid façade. Driver doles out Ferrari’s personality in dribs and drabs; the contented lover with Lina, the hard driving boss with his racers and the stoic husband no longer in love with his wife. All aspects of this performance come packaged in the form of a man treated like a deity—a priest even refers to him as a “god”—but prone to real world failings. Driver captures the public and personal to create a complex portrait of a man driven by a variety of forces.
He is at his best when opposite Cruz. Laura is a supporting character in the story over-all, but her agony/rage for a loveless marriage, a son she was powerless to save and a company she co-founded but is unable to have a say in, is palpable.
You can’t make a movie about Enzo Ferrari and not include racing, particularly the career defining Mille Miglia, but Mann wisely keeps the focus on the interpersonal. “Ferrari” has race scenes, several very effective ones, but the memorable moments happen when Driver and Cruz put the pedal to the emotional metal.
“North of Normal,” a new coming-of-age movie now playing in theatres, tells the unlikely, but true story of Cea Sunrise Person from her off-the-grid beginnings in the wilderness of Alberta and British Columbia to the runways of the fashion world.
Based on Person’s 2014 memoir, “North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Counterculture Family, and How I Survived Both,” the movie jumps in time between Cea’s upbringing in the flower power 1970s and her reunion, after a long break, with her free-spirited mother Michelle (Sarah Gadon) in the 1980s.
The story begins in Kootenay Plains, Alberta on a commune run by Micelle’s father “Papa Dick” (Robert Carlyle). Convinced that the “wilderness would solve all their problems,” the older man is a messianic figure firm in his rejection of the outside world. Michelle is 15 years-old- and pregnant with Cea, later played by River Price-Maenpaa as a child.
Cea’s (played as an adolescent and teen by Amanda Fix) life changes when Michelle, after an endless stream of boyfriends, moves them to the city to be with her latest beau. Thrown into a strange new world, Cea relies on Papa Dick’s philosophy—“Never give in to fear.”—and forges a new life, and security, for herself on the high fashion runways of New York and Paris.
“I’m not going to hang around and wait for the world to give me a good life,” she says. “I have a good face, and I’m going to use it.”
The long, strange trip of Person’s unconventional life is brought to life in a heartfelt, yet somewhat conventional film. Gadon embraces her character’s warmth, but also her unpredictability. Michelle isn’t a good mother, but she is Cea’s only support system, and their thorny bond is nicely wrought—warts and all.
“North of Normal” is a simple movie about a complicated relationship. It avoids most of the melodrama that could have flavored the story, although a hair cutting scene comes close, instead, choosing to allow the fine acting to reveal the hidden emotional scars of mother and daughter.
As you might imagine from a movie that begins with the voiceover, “In the history of mankind has there ever been a more obvious truth than the statement, ‘We’re all going to die?” and yet in our bones, how many of us can conceptualize that,” “All My Puny Sorrows” does not shy away from the delicate matter of death.
Struggling writer Yoli (Alison Pill) and concert pianist Elf (Sarah Gadon)—short for Elfrieda—are sisters who fled a strict, rural Mennonite upbringing to forge lives in the arts. A deep bond exists between the, even though their lives took very different paths.
Yoli is in the midst of a divorce after sixteen years of marriage. As daughter Nora (Amybeth McNulty) is lashes out, Yoli wonders aloud if she’s handling things correctly. “Ending sixteen years of monogamy with Dan has triggered some kind of weird animal reaction,” she says. “To be honest, the last few months have not been my proudest.”
Elf, though internationally successful and happily married, has lost her lust for life. When she attempts suicide for the second time, Yoli comes to her side, hoping to help her sister avoid the same fate as their father Jake (Donal Logue) who killed himself when they were children, but her pleas fall on deaf ears.
“Will you take me to Switzerland?” asks Elf.
“Yeah, we’ll get Swatches,” says Yoli.
But Elf wants to go to an assisted suicide clinic, “where dying is legal and you don’t have to die alone.”
Writer-director Michael McGowan, adapting the novel-of-the-same-name by Miriam Toews, tells a story all about grief and death that examines the purpose of life. McGowan sensitively shows how life’s decisions have echoes felt by everyone in the inner circle and beyond.
These themes are enhanced by the performances of Pill, Gadon and Mare Winningham as their beleaguered mother. The literary script often feels as though the characters are speaking in carefully constructed prose, but in the mouths of these performers love, frustration and acceptance of the situation is palpable. Pill and Gadon click as sisters, bringing to the screen a lifetime of love and petty squabbles.
“All My Puny Sorrows” is an emotional movie that embraces the totality of the situation, the exasperation, sorrow and even occasional humor.
“Black Bear,” now in select theatres and on VOD, is a psychological drama that draws you in with a false sense of familiarity before a mid-movie turn that turns expectations upside down.
Set in a remote B&B on a beautiful lake in Upstate New York run by semi-pro musician Gabe (Christopher Abbott) and his pregnant, former dancer wife Blair (Sarah Gadon), are the Bickersons by way of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” No comment from either of them goes unanswered by a barb or withering look. “It’s not that I can’t stand that you have thoughts about the world,” Blair says to Gabe in one heated exchange. “It’s that I can’t stand the thoughts about the world you have.”
Into this insular situation comes Allison (Aubrey Plaza), an actress-turned-filmmaker who booked a weekend away hoping to find inspiration in nature for her next movie. “I’m waiting for something meaningful to happen to me,” she says. Instead, she becomes entwined in the personal lives of her hosts. Secrets are shared, recriminations fly and hostilities arise.
The talky first half, with a long, drunken discussion about traditional gender roles, leads into Part Two: The Bear by the Boat House, a surreal jump to the filming of the movie-within-the-movie. Without giving anything of substance away, Gabe is now the film’s egomaniacal director while Blair is now Allison’s co-star in a tortured indie film that seems to be taking its cues from the real-life retreat. Themes of the creative process, temptation and the pain of toxic relationships introduced in the first half are further reflected in part two.
“Black Bear” is an audacious movie that defies categorization. It’s playing in select theatres, wherever theatres are open, but I suspect it will mostly be seen on VOD. That’s a shame because the layered story is not something you can digest casually while thumbing through Twitter or eating a sandwich. The personal dynamics on display are filled with conflict and every line is a trigger that sets the next into motion.
The performances bring the difficult material to life. Abbott and Gadon are very good, but it is Plaza whose work leaves a mark. She brings a furious intensity to Allison that will blow the hair back on anyone only familiar with her work as the darkly disinterested April Ludgate on the sitcom “Parks and Recreation.” It’s a complex and challenging performance that is bracingly and simultaneously real and surreal.
“Black Bear” will confound viewers looking for easy answers and a neatly tied up bow at the end. Like the creative process it portrays, it is unknowable in its entirety, a deliberate cypher meant to engage both your head and your heart.
“Vampires Vs. the Bronx,” a “Goonies” style coming-of-age Halloween flick now playing on Netflix, is a throwback to the good old days when horror for kids had fun and an edge. That it also has a timely message is simply the icing on the cake, or in this case, the blood on the stake.
The story centers around Miguel (Jaden Michael), Luis (Gregory Diaz IV), and Bobby (Gerald W. Jones III), three Bronx teens trying to arrange a block party to raise money to save their second home, a bodega operated by Tony (The Kid Mero), from being forced out by a rent hike.
Meanwhile, a new business is buying up all the local businesses, bringing with them gentrification and outsiders to the neighborhood. “White people with canvas bags. That’s always the first sign!” Among the newcomers are Frank (Shea Whigham), the tough guy whose throwing all the money around under the name Murnau Properties and Vivian (Sarah Gadon), a well-meaning newbie who always seems to be nearby whenever the kids are outside.
When people begin to disappear Miguel, the neighborhood’s beating heart and soul, realizes the obvious, that vampires have come north of 120th street. “Sleep with one eye open and don’t get got,” says live-streamer Gloria (Imani Lewis). When they discover that the bloodsuckers plan on taking over the kids watch a “Blade” DVD to pick up vampire hunting tricks and rally the neighborhood to fight back.
“Vampires Vs. the Bronx” is both a loving tribute to teen horror—the guys call the vampires “Suckhead!”—and a carefully constructed condemnation of gentrification. Director Oz Rodriguez brings much personality to the film, bringing the dying neighborhood to vivid life. He builds the world, infusing the story with subtle and not-so-subtle references to racism—“We’re going to wipe you out like the vermin you are,” sneers one vampire—and the timely real world issues regarding marginalized communities—“It’s easier to live somewhere where no one cares when people disappear,” says another bloodsucker—nimbly balancing social commentary and jokes.
The story isn’t just a vampire story, although there’s fangs and stakes and blood. It’s more about the trio of charismatic kids who become heroes to protect something they really believe in. They have heart and humour, and while the horror may not satisfy hardcore gorehounds, the movie’s ebullience will.
“American Woman,” the first feature directed by “Mad Men” producer and writer Semi Chellas, is a fictionalized version of real events. A series of title cards set the stage. The year is 1975. “After multiple investigations, the President of the United States has been forced to resign.” “America’s disastrous involvement in the war in Vietnam is finally coming to an end.” “Some radicals still believe a revolution is necessary.”
Amid this time of political turmoil is Jenny Shimada (Hong Chau), a bomb maker who once blew up a draft board office. On the run, she is hiding out in upstate New York, working as a house keeper for a rich, conservative woman (Ellen Burstyn). She comes out of her semi-retirement when a publisher and old colleague-in-the-cause contacts her with a new mission. He wants her to look after three fugitive Symbionese Liberation Army members, Juan (John Gallagher), his wife Yvonne (Lola Kirke), and Pauline (Sarah Gadon), the kidnapped daughter of a newspaper magnate, as they write a book about their experiences. “You can’t just sit around waiting to die or be caught,” she tells them. “You have to start writing. Write the book, make the money. It’s the only way you’ll survive underground.” Jenny’s reward? Enough cash to leave the country.
The basics of the story are borrowed from the well documented kidnapping and radicalization, of American heiress Patty Hearst. Pauline is an obvious surrogate for Hearst while Jenny is a fictionalized version of Wendy Yoshimura, the woman who was with Patty Hearst when she was apprehended.
The names have been changed and some of the details, but this sharply written story isn’t a history lesson. It’s a study of people who have chosen a radical path in life. It showcases Jaun’s ideological rantings but also wonders aloud if Pauline truly converted to the cause or was simply trying to survive. “I don’t want to be an outlaw,” she says. “Outlaws always die at the end of the story.”
Add in themes on toxic masculinity—Juan may be a free thinker but his behavior toward women is anything but enlightened—sexuality, class, gender and race and you have film big on ideas while leaving the action scenes for other movies.
“American Woman” is a movie that values words. Some may find the storytelling a bit too low key for such an explosive subject, but the performances, particularly Chau, give the story layers. Chellas, who wrote the script in addition to directing, uses the main characters, Jenny and Pauline, as conduits to help us understand a complicated and slow-simmer story of survival.
There’s accident-prone and then there’s Louis Drax. After surviving eight near-death experiences, the young boy almost meets his end on his ninth birthday when he tumbles off a cliff. What is his secret to survival? More importantly, why do terrible things keep happening to him?
Louis’s (Aiden Longworth) latest accident has left his family in tatters and him in a coma. As psychologist Dr. Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan) delves into the strange case, piecing together the disparate aspects and weird coincidences of Louis’s life that brought him to the coma ward, the good doctor also begins a romantic relationship with the boy’s mother Natalie (Sarah Gadon). The details surrounding Louis’s case not only defy medical logic but believability as well. “I think that some people don’t want to wake up until they feel safe,” Pascal says to the comatose boy. Determined to get to the bottom of the medical mystery Pascal and a colleague, Dr. Perez (Oliver Platt), take drastic steps to get inside the boy’s head.
“The 9th Life for Louis Drax” rides the line between reality and fantasy, pitting perception against interpretation. Director Alexandre Aja ambitiously tackles a complicated narrative, switching the point of view between Louis and Pascal perspectives as he balances the story’s three-pronged attack. It’s part psychological drama, part mystery and part police procedural. Add to that a creepy sea monster that visits Louis and you have a film that feels like a novel.
Dornan makes for a good looking, if bland leading man, but Gaddon and Aaron Paul, as Louis’s father, hand in solid, interesting performances. They bring the human touch the story needs to keep the fantasy elements from overpowering the gothic narrative core. The movie flirts with the supernatural but it is more a look at how truth can be interpreted.
“The 9th Life for Louis Drax” is a handsome film that feels like Guillermo Del Toro Lite. Aja’s film isn’t quite as deep or magical as it thinks it is, but it’s a nice, mostly entertaining adaptation of a complex novel.
James Schamus, a producer best known for his Oscar winning work with Ang Lee, makes his directorial debut with “Indgination.” The story of a young man’s coming-of-age isn’t a case of style over substance—it has both in spades—but of character over plot.
Based on Philip Roth’s novel of the same name, “Indignation” is the story of Marcus Messner (Logan Lerman), a young working class Jewish man who earns a scholarship to the WASPy Winesburg College in Ohio. It’s 1951 and his enrolment in school keeps him from being drafted to fight in Korea and out from under the thumb of his over protective father.
A studious young man—his roommate says, “He’s a scholar who doesn’t have time for frivolities like the theatre.”—he immerses himself in his classes to the exclusion of almost everything else. The only break in his concentration comes in the form of Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gaddon), a beautiful classmate whose charms, both physically and intellectually, distract him from his work.
On their first and only date something happens (NO SPOILERS HERE) that plunge Marcus into previously uncharted personal territory. Eventually his intensity toward his schooling and Olivia draws the attention of Dean Caudwell (Tracy Letts), which threatens his place within the school and provides the film with its best scene.
Like other adaptations of Roth’s work “Indignation” is filled with richly drawn characters. Where it falls down is in the storytelling. Roth’s novel is a personal piece of work loosely based on his own 1950s college experience. It’s a look at life’s decisions and their consequences, intellectual purity and sexual discovery, all themes touched on in the film but without the benefit of Roth’s investigative, haunting prose.
What does shine through are the characters. In a break-out role Lerman holds the center of the movie, doing formidable work in scenes opposite Gaddon and Letts. His scenes with Gaddon brim with sexual attraction touched with longing and sadness but it is with Letts that Lerman does his best work. A mid-movie tour-de-force sees the two showdown in the moralistic Dean’s office, arguing everything from baseball to Bertrand Russell. The verbally jousting is the film’s high point; a lovely bit of acting that could stand on its own as a short film.
“Indignation” is about truth and consequences, unspoken love and inexperience, but mostly its about great acting from a fine cast.
