Tag Archives: Saoirse Ronan

Movie Review ~ See How They Run

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The Facts:

Synopsis: When world-weary Inspector Stoppard and eager rookie Constable Stalker take on a case of murder in London’s West End, the two find themselves thrown into a puzzling whodunit within the glamorously sordid theater underground, investigating the mysterious homicide at their peril
Stars: Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Ruth Wilson, Reece Shearsmith, Harris Dickinson, David Oyelowo
Director:  Tom George
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 98 minutes
TMMM Score: (7/10)
Review:  Never underestimate the power of a good puzzle. During the past two years, puzzle sales have increased dramatically, leveling off as more restrictions were lifted, and the world again gathered as groups. While we were all cooped up, there was fun to be had at the organization and completion of a tricky jigsaw. It certainly made the time fly by. I have a stack of puzzles in my closet that can attest to the popularity of this resurgent pastime. 

The same pull to find a solution to this game draws viewers into the mystery and thriller genre, which also was in declining output in recent years. This phenomenon is primarily due to the mid-range budgeting involved and fewer opportunities for studios to franchise future installments. It’s hard to sequel-ize a movie where the characters might not all make it to the final act. Then a film like Knives Out comes around along with streaming material like Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, and the genre feels revitalized. Before you know it remakes of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile are getting greenlit. Rather than blood, guts, and gore found in slasher films with an unknown killer, these more prestige releases represent the classic whodunit.

As audiences await the upcoming release of the third season of Hulu’s hit show and the upcoming Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, 20th Century Studios’ See How They Run is sprinting to beat the rush, and the timing couldn’t be better. It’s a breath of fresh air, though it often plays like Only Knives Out in the Theater, just with less crisp creativity for twists in the plot. What you see is what you get in director Tom George’s period mystery that plays with real elements of history, but with a production that has a zest for the era and natty performances you want to see more of, it easily laps the lesser fare we’ve been just getting by on.

It’s 1953, and the hot ticket in London’s West End is Agatha Christie’s original play, The Mousetrap. As it celebrates its 100th performance, the film rights have recently been sold, and dodgy film director Leo Köpernick (Adrian Brody, Clean) has arrived from America to attend the festivities. While the reclusive authoress herself doesn’t make the party, plenty of the who’s who do, along with a killer that strikes before the night is over. 

The keen Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan, Little Women) and the jaded Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell, Richard Jewell) are sent in to investigate. One brings an eagerness to solve the crime quickly, while the more seasoned detective knows not to trust everything you see. As they go down the list of suspects: a penny-pinching producer (Ruth Wilson, Saving Mr. Banks), a snooty screenwriter (David Oyelowo, The Water Man), and even the show’s star Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson, Where the Crawdads Sing), they’ll find out there’s more to the murder (and the killer) that meets the eye. 

More than anything, See How They Run showcases Ronan’s ease doing droll comedy as the dutiful constable with a penchant for cringe-y one-liners. She makes a nice counterpart(ner) for Rockwell’s boozy Inspector. The two can efficiently work independently but strike the best chords playing off one another. A great cast is assembled in the ensemble, but it’s a shame Mark Chappell’s script doesn’t afford them more to do throughout. I was often left wondering why particular characters had greater pull than others. It helps to level the playing field as to who might be the next victim but when you have a company this game, let them play. If anything, See How They Run screams to be played out over several hour-long episodes instead of the brisk 98 minutes.

Due to the fact it is so straightforward, you may be tempted to concoct numerous solutions in your head before you get to the final reveal. I wouldn’t put too much time into working things out because the answer to the film’s riddle isn’t as complex as you think (hope?) it is. That doesn’t speak to lessen the quality of the film; it just goes to the plot’s inherent weakness for curveballs that could have been tweaked. It’s still marvelously witty at times and catty at others. I’d stroll to See How They Run in theaters if you’re dying for a drawing room-style murder mystery but do keep it high on your list to catch eventually. This talented team is too delicious to pass up.

Movie Review ~ Ammonite

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Acclaimed paleontologist Mary Anning works alone selling common fossils to tourists to support her ailing mother, but a chance job offer changes her life when a visitor hires her to care for his wife.

Stars: Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Jones, James McArdle, Alec Secăreanu, Fiona Shaw

Director: Francis Lee

Rated: R

Running Length: 117 minutes

TMMM Score: (4/10)

Review:  In the realm of the blockbuster comic book franchise films, it was front page news when Batman did battle with Superman and the buzz was booming when top acting star Bradley Cooper joined forces with mega-watt recording artist Lady Gaga for their remake of A Star is Born.  Yet when two of the most respected actresses working today joined forces on a film for the first time it barely created a ripple effect in the film industry at the outset.  I mean, this should have been some kind of cause for cheers.  Look through most lists of best actresses (or just view the Oscar nominees from the last decade) and you’ll see the names Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan pop up often and there’s a reason for that.  Both are highly charged performers that invite audiences into the worlds they create, crafting blood and bone people who feel as if they could leap off the screen.

By all accounts, the joining of these two talents on Ammonite should have been big news and for a while, it was.  Here was a period drama featuring Winslet as real-life English fossil collector and paleontologist Mary Anning living in the chilly coastal Lyme Regis, Dorset, England and Ronan as Charlotte, a young wife who accompanies her amateur fossil-hunter husband to meet Mary and winds up staying behind.  A fictionalized account of their friendship and eventual romance by writer/director Francis Lee, Ammonite should have been a slam dunk of a film for all involved.  However, it has the misfortune of coming on the heels of two other movies, one directed by Lee himself, that have many of the same themes, and both play them with a richer sound.

There’s not much more to Ammonite than what I just laid out for you and what is etched out briefly in the synopsis…so you’re in for 117 minutes of rocks and frocks with little in the way of joy.  I’d have expected more from everyone, especially considering this is a completely fabricated work that takes the life of a neglected woman from history and basically gives her the opportunity to be seen for the first time by a larger audience outside of the scientific community.  Though Dickens supposedly wrote about her and rumor has it her dedication to excavating along the ocean line inspired the tongue-twister “She sells seashells by the seashore”, Mary Anning is mostly an unknown to the layperson.  So why would Lee take us into her small piece of the world in Dorset and make it so gloomy gus?

Perhaps it was a desire from Ronan to slough off some of the porcelain veneer she’s achieved these last years as the catch-all for every kind of inspired ingenue through the ages. Between receiving Best Actress Oscar nominations for the headstrong Jo in Greta Gerwig’s remake of Little Women, as an Irish immigrant bravely making a go of it on her own in mid-century NYC in Brooklyn, or as a determined and misunderstood high school senior in Lady Bird, she hasn’t had much of a chance to find the cracks and crevices in female characters that simply don’t have the answers to function on their own. In that way, Ammonite succeeds in providing an outlet for Ronan to stretch and expose herself in spirt and, in several graphic sex scenes, body.

On the other hand, Winslet struggles with going through the motions of another troubled woman held back by or judged more harshly on the norms of society.  Similar to Iris, Jude, Little Children, and her Oscar-winning role in The Reader, Winslet knows how to work these sharp angles of women on the fringe that don’t care what people think but secretly are pained by their stares.  We know she’s a loner from the jump and that Ronan will find a way to break down her walls, but in Lee’s telling we never quite see why, aside from the attention being paid to her from the young beauty.  While Winslet and Ronan have an easy rapport, I never quite bought into their physical attraction to each other, though they do their best to help us get to some kind of acceptance by the film’s late in the game eye-opener of a bedroom encounter.  Let’s just say this…if you’re watching Ammonite with someone else make sure you’re comfortable enough with them to withstand some extreme awkwardness.  One of the best scenes in the film isn’t even between the two stars, it’s with Winslet and Fiona Shaw (Kindred) who makes a brief cameo in a role that is on one hand something new and different for Shaw to be seen in while at the same time playing in to her ability to give every character a nice little secret.

In 2017, Lee wrote and directed God’s Own Country, a superior film following the unlikely relationship that forms between two men and the contrast between that movie and Ammonite can’t be written off.  Both feature someone living a hard-scrabble life without much in the way of availability to express their true feelings of physical love and a chance encounter with a passing stranger that affords some kind of passion to enter their hemisphere.  Though the consequences in each film are different, knowing Lee is behind both suggests the filmmaker has more than a passing interest in telling stories of romance that blooms off the beaten path.  Ammonite also parallels 2019’s rightfully-lauded Portrait of a Lady on Fire – you can almost draw arrows between both plots/characters that point to one another.  The problem with this is that for both Portrait of a Lady on Fire and God’s Own Country, Ammonite is always seen as the lesser of the two so you find yourself watching a new movie and wishing it were as good as an older one.

It’s sad that this pairing has yielded such bland fruit as Ammonite.  I like both actresses and I quite like Gemma Jones (Rocketman) appearing here as Winslet’s long-suffering mother who has a porcelain figurine for each of the eight children she’s lost over the years.  Watching her clean the tiny curios daily as her only bit of happiness is devastating, the rare bit of true unique emotion Lee has for audiences exploring this dramatized tale he’s imagined.  I’d almost rather have seen a fuller version of Anning’s life that detailed how she came to find a passion for what she did, how she was originally rejected by members of the scientific community, and how her work provided the basis for a number of advancements over time.  There’s romance in science as well.

Movie Review ~ Little Women (2019)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Following the lives of four sisters, Amy, Jo, Beth and Meg, as they come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War. Though all very different from each other, the March sisters stand by each other through difficult and changing times

Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton

Director: Greta Gerwig

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 135 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (6.5/10)

Review:  It’s been 151 years since Louisa May Alcott wrote her classic novel Little Women and it seems over that time there have been as many adaptations of it on stage and screens big and small.  There’s just something timeless about Alcott’s tale of sisters moving through stages of their lives that has spoken to countless generations.  Whether you come from a big household or were an only child (like me), there’s something relatable and warmly familiar about the March family, allowing readers to latch on to a particular character and know them well enough to say “I’m a Jo” or “She’s more of a Meg”.  No matter how many times we’re exposed to the material, we still laugh at their comedic moments and cry when the reality of life steps in.

Having read the book on more than one occasion and keeping a certain fondness for anything it inspired (stage play, musical, miniseries, film), I could easily call myself a fan and am always willing to give any new interpretation the benefit of the doubt.  Heck, over the holiday break I even watched the made-for-television movie The March Sisters at Christmas, a modernized version of the story that took some giant liberties with the source material.  (For the record, it wasn’t half bad.)  What makes it difficult for me is that I think the much-loved 1994 version is the epitome of success in translation to the screen.  Though it had been seen in theaters before in 1933 and again in 1949, something about the ‘90s version just hit all the right notes for me, making it indelible and hard to measure up to.  Even so, when I heard Greta Gerwig (Mistress America) was taking on the duties of writer/director for a 2019 take on Little Women, I was interested to see what she would do with it and where it would land on the scale of successful retellings.

For those not familiar with the source material, the bones of Alcott’s story remain the same.  The Civil War is going strong and Father (Bob Odenkirk, Long Shot) is on the front lines, leaving his wife Marmee (Laura Dern, Marriage Story) and their four daughters to keep the household going for the duration.  Eldest daughter Meg (Emma Watson, The Bling Ring) strives to lead by example, eagerly anticipating a domestic life with a husband and children.  That’s quite the opposite of headstrong Jo (Saoirse Ronan, The Host) the de facto leader of the siblings who makes great plans to roam beyond the confines of their Concord, Mass homestead.  Shy Beth (Eliza Scanlen, Sharp Objects) is the calming presence, taking solace in her piano playing while the youngest Amy (Florence Pugh, Midsommar) longs for a romanticized life rubbing shoulders with the elite.

Drifting into the March orbit at various times are a sour Aunt (Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins) anxious to see her family lineage continue on well-funded and neighbor Laurie (Timothée Chalamet, Beautiful Boy) whose curiosity and friendship with the sisters quickly turns into something deeper and more heartbreaking.  Also playing a part in the episodic developments as the years go by are Laurie’s grandfather (Chris Cooper, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), tutor John Brooke (James Norton, Mr. Turner), and Mr. Bhaer (Louis Garrel, The Dreamers), a professor staying in the same boarding house as Jo when she moves to New York City.  As the girls turn to women, they experience love and loss while striving to find their place not just in the outside world but in the small haven they’ve created within the walls of their childhood home.

Thankfully, there are a lot of things to recommend in this adaptation and I largely enjoyed it, even if there are some interesting choices made that don’t always feel effective.  It should please fans of the novel, although I’m not sure how easy it would be for newcomers to the story to get into the hearts and minds of our favorite characters. Though set in the appropriate period, Gerwig’s modern voice is front and center and while it doesn’t change the overall impact of Alcott’s novel the emotional beats are delivered in a different way than ever before.

Following up her semi-autobiographical breakout hit Lady Bird, Gerwig has made the intriguing choice to take a non-linear approach to Little Women.  Instead of a straight narrative that follows along the years with the family, events are chopped up and rearranged to function as memories or recollections.  What this accomplishes is giving the characters the opportunity to look back from the other side of conflict which eventually starts to wreak havoc on the way audiences are involved and invited into the story.  I found the first hour a bit of a struggle to stick with and, though well performed by Gerwig’s cast, difficult to keep up with because it bounces around so much.  The second hour is more of a challenge to talk about without giving away a crucial bit of plot but suffice it to say turns that in the past had me reaching for the Kleenex barely registered a sniffle in this telling.  That’s unfortunate because there’s such rich opportunity to explore the complexities of the heart but how can you take any time for emotion when the next scene may take place years prior, undoing whatever loss we’ve just seen?

The casting announcements for this were exciting at the time because Gerwig has assembled a dynamite team of actors that aren’t necessarily known for being overly earnest with their material.  What’s needed is honesty, not an overselling of what is essentially a near perfect piece of American literature.  In that respect, the cast is successful; however there are a few elements that I just couldn’t quite get over.  For one thing, it’s never clear the ages of the sisters.  Pugh looks the oldest of all and she’s playing the youngest while Watson feels like she’d be a more adept Beth than a Meg.  Ronan is a wonderful Jo, skillfully presenting her stubbornness without being obnoxious, eventually exposing the raw vulnerability beneath a lifetime of building up a hard-ish surface.  Amy is often seen as the flightiest of the March sisters but Gerwig and Pugh have confidently grounded her, showing the character is more worldly-wise than she’s ever been previously given credit for.  I quite like Scanlen’s take on Beth, even though she (like her character) gets overshadowed by the other women she shares the screen with.

Not surprisingly, Streep is a wry gas as a fussy relative who is “not always right.  But never wrong” and Cooper’s sensitive take on the kindly neighbor is fairly lovely.  The two main suitors Gerwig has cast are likely the most problematic for me.  As Jo’s elder boarding house friend, Garrel doesn’t create much in the way of sparks with Ronan.  It’s a distinctly flat performance and you wonder why Jo would ever have her head turned even a fraction the way Garrel handles the material.  I know Gerwig thinks Chalamet can do no wrong but he’s not well-suited for the role of the pining boy next door.  Certain finalities of his character don’t ring true, which is perhaps what Gerwig was going for, but it weakens Laurie’s relationship with two key March sisters.  Chalamet has the acting chops to give it a go but isn’t the right choice for the role.

In the car on the ride home, I became one of those purist people that wanted this new Little Women to be the way I imagined it to be.  I rattled off a list of things that didn’t sit right to my partner, citing the 1994 version as my ideal way to tell the story.  That’s not fair to Gerwig or her team, nor is it doing right to the movie as a whole.  Just as each generation has discovered Alcott’s everlasting story, so too should a new audience be exposed to the Little Women through their own version on screen.  I hold the 1994 effort in high regard and, clearly, this one trails that in my book, yet it shouldn’t ultimately define how it stacks up historically.  The tagline for the movie is “Own your own story.” and it can serve as a reminder that the version we have in our head will always supersede anything we can see from another perspective.

The Silver Bullet ~ Little Women (2019)

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Synopsis: Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Release Date: December 25, 2019

Thoughts: It’s a curious thing, watching this first trailer for the much-anticipated holiday release of Little Women.  I mean, it’s not exactly like we’ve been starved for adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel.  There was a modern remake last year, a well-regarded BBC mini-series in 2017, and the 1994 version starring Winona Ryder still ranks high on my list.  Let’s not forget the Katherine Hepburn entry from 1933 or the one in 1949 with Elizabeth Taylor among the dozens of other takes on the source novel.  All this to say I was surprised director Greta Gerwig chose this project as her follow-up to her breakout hit Lady Bird.  To me, the way the preview is cut feels too indie twee for me, but Gerwig has assembled a heck of a wonderful cast with Saoirse Ronan (How I Live Now), Timothée Chalamet (Beautiful Boy), Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins), Florence Pugh (Midsommar), Laura Dern (Smooth Talk), and Emma Watson (The Bling Ring) getting into the period costumes to once again bring Alcott’s characters to the screen.

Movie Review ~ Mary Queen of Scots

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Mary Stuart’s attempt to overthrow her cousin Elizabeth I, Queen of England, finds her condemned to years of imprisonment before facing execution.

Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, Gemma Chan, Martin Compston, Ismael Cordova, Brendan Coyle, Ian Hart, Adrian Lester, James McArdle, David Tennant, Guy Pearce

Director: Josie Rourke

Rated: R

Running Length: 124 minutes

TMMM Score: (8.5/10)

Review: ‘Tis the season to be jolly…and to be faced with an onslaught of Oscar bait historical dramas that can arrive with hype but fade without much fanfare.  I mean, we’ve already seen what happened to Keira Knightley’s Collette earlier this fall.  Oh, you missed it in theaters?  So did I…and everyone else.  I sure hope Mary, Queen of Scots isn’t another 2018 victim of this reluctance by audiences in sitting for two hours for a period piece.  For all its historical fudging of the facts and obvious attempts to link the ill treatment of two powerful women in the past to our present state of living in a #MeToo and #TimesUp environment, this is a fantastically entertaining film that had this notorious watch-checker glued to the screen with nary a glance toward his timepiece.

I admit it’s been more than a hot minute since I’ve had a history lesson on the legacy of the English monarchy so I’m going on the good faith of the opening text that in 1561 young Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird) returned to her Scottish homeland.  Widowed by her husband, the Dauphin of France, she had a strong claim to the throne of England, then held by her first cousin Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie, I, Tonya) but she wasn’t just able to waltz in and toss the crown on her head.  The Catholic Stuart posed a threat to the Protestant Elizabeth, not just in the religious differences of their subjects and not the least of which was that whoever produced a child first would be able to call the throne hers.

Over the next twenty six years the two women would wage a complex game of chess in which both moved players to the forefront for personal and political gain, only to be outwitted or strong-armed aside by the various men that conspired against the both of them.  “Men can be so cruel” Elizabeth is heard saying and in Beau Willimon’s script it’s clear that the men are the enemy (there’s not a single truly honorable bloke in the bunch) and women were kept under thumb despite their noble attempts to bring peace and order to their lands in the ways they, as monarchs, deemed correct.

Willimon’s experience as creator of the US adaptation of House of Cards was a good training ground for his work here.  The intricate political dealings between the two queens and their assembled privy councils make for some crackling good scenes of wit and retort and the heated arguments, desperate protestations, and whispered confidences come off well in the hands of our stars and the supporting players.  Even taking liberties with some historical points of interest and outright dreaming up a meeting with Mary and Elizabeth doesn’t feel as if a great historical injustice is being done.

First-time director Joise Rourke gives it her all in Mary, Queen of Scots, nicely blending costume drama (oh, those wonderful costumes by Alexandra Byrne, Thor!) and episodic schemes against Mary by the ones she holds closest. Originally courted by Lord Robert Dudley (Joe Alwyn, The Favourite) as a favor to Elizabeth in the hopes she can control her cousin, Mary eventually weds Henry Darnley (Jack Lowden, Dunkrik) who has secrets of his own that come to light in one of several twists I was surprised to see. For those averse to staid costume drama, there are battle scenes with Mary leading a charge against an army set to overthrow her and double-crosses aplenty.

Ronan proves again she’s a force to be reckoned with, much like the doomed queen she is portraying. Headstrong (pun intended) but not without compassion, Ronan gives Mary a modern sensibility in a time and place where women may have had a regal title but rarely had the upper hand. Robbie, too, has strong moments in a role that could easily have delved into camp considering her prosthetic nose and the heavy clown make-up Elizabeth wore to cover-up the lasting scars of her pox ailment.

Filling out the cast are a stable full of actors playing Mary’s devoted ladies in waiting as well as Guy Pearce (Prometheus) as Elizabeth’s advisor and Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians) as her confidante. The movie unquestionably belongs to our leading ladies and though the two actresses spend the majority of the film talking about one another, when they finally do meet up (in a scene that supposedly never really happened) Rourke gives the actresses room to breathe and resists the urge to lean into the catty nature Willimon’s script veers toward. The way cinematographer John Mathieson (Logan) moves his camera to create tension before the ladies first see each other had me on the edge of my seat.

History buffs may well reject this movie outright for its strident approach to the lives of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth but if you’re talking pure entertainment value then Mary, Queen of Scots has its head and heart in the right place.

The Silver Bullet ~ On Chesil Beach

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Synopsis: Based on Ian McEwan’s novel. In England in 1962, a young couple finds their idyllic romance colliding with issues of sexual freedom and societal pressure, leading to an awkward and fateful wedding night.

Release Date: May 18, 2018

Thoughts: Seems to me that Saoirse Ronan is getting a bit greedy. Her Best Actress Oscar run for Lady Bird isn’t even rounding third yet and she’s already marking her territory for next year with On Chesil Beach.  In all seriousness, Ronan has proven to be a smart actress with a talent for finding projects with characters that have real dimension to them.  After earning her first Oscar nomination with Ian McEwan’s Atonement, the actress takes on another McEwan project and it looks like an interesting slice of life tale costarring Emily Watson (The Theory of Everything) and Billy Howle (Dunkirk).  I’m not quite sure where the movie is going but I’m game for a day at Chesil Beach if Ronan is leading the way.

Movie Review ~ Loving Vincent

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The Facts:

Synopsis: In a story depicted in oil painted animation, a young man comes to the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh to deliver the troubled artist’s final letter and ends up investigating his final days there.

Stars: Helen McCrory, Saoirse Ronan, Aidan Turner, Eleanor Tomlinson, Chris O’Dowd, Douglas Booth

Director: Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 94 minutes

TMMM Score: (9/10)

Review: Sometimes I am my own worst enemy. For months now, I’d been hearing critics sing the praises of Loving Vincent and proclaiming it to be a sure-fire nominee for Best Animated Feature Academy Award and a front-runner for taking home the big award on Oscar night. Yet I resisted seeing it for all this time, nearly getting cold feet again when it popped up at my local second-run movie theater. Could a film that is entirely hand-painted in the style of Vincent van Gogh keep me interested (and awake) for 94 minutes?

Oh yes. Oh boy, yes.

A true work of art, Loving Vincent is a Polish-British production and is the world’s first fully painted feature film. A vibrant mix of colors and ideas, it’s not a straight biopic of the Dutch-born painter who was posthumously proclaimed to be the father of modern Expressionism but a look back at his last few months as seen through the eyes of those that knew him. Van Gogh’s own portraits inspire many of the characters in directors Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman’s film and while the story may not hold up in court as entirely factual, the tale it tells is absorbing and enthralling.

A little over a year after van Gogh’s death by self-inflicted gunshot, Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth, Noah), the son of a postmaster (Chris O’Dowd, The Sapphires) who was friendly with van Gogh, is tasked with delivering the painter’s final letter to his brother, Theo. This begins a journey that takes him to the small village of Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris where a mystery about van Gogh’s final days begins to unfold. Through recollections by various townsfolk that are relayed in stark black and white, Armand starts to piece together what led the painter who long struggled with depression to take his own life in a most unusual manner. Will the doctor (Jerome Flynn) who treated him and became his friend provide any insight? What about the doctor’s prim daughter (Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird) or their upright housekeeper (Helen McCrory, Skyfall)? Then there’s the boatman (Aidan Turner, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) and a proprietress (Eleanor Tomlinson, Jack the Giant Slayer) of a local hotel where van Gogh took his last breath. All provide valuable clues that propel Armand further into needing to know the truth.

Over 100 artists worked on this film and it’s really a spectacular sight to behold. Everything in the past seems to have been created with a charcoal hue while the present proceedings jump off the screen with van Gogh’s famed thick layers of oil and paint. Even when nothing is moving on screen the film still seems to have a life of its own as the colors and hues change to give more depth. It’s highly imaginative and not the least bit the tough on the eyes watch I feared it may be.

With all due respect to Pixar’s Coco (which is a landmark achievement of its own), Loving Vincent surely represents the best animation had to offer in 2017. The Oscar should go to the film that pushed the boundaries the most and gave audiences something they’ve never seen before. The craft on display here is unparalleled and worthy of taking home the prize when all is said and done. Loving Vincent is currently playing in select theaters but is also available to rent/buy on streaming services and in physical DVD/BluRay. Check it out – it will be money well spent.

Movie Review ~ Lady Bird

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The Facts:

Synopsis: The adventures of a young woman living in Northern California for a year.

Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Lois Smith, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Odeya Rush, Jordan Rodrigues, Marielle Scott

Director: Greta Gerwig

Rated: R

Running Length: 93 minutes

TMMM Score: (7/10)

Review: There was a time in the not so distant past when Greta Gerwig and I weren’t on speaking terms.  I know when the rift started: Frances Ha.  While Gerwig’s collaboration with writer/director Noah Baumbach became an indie twee delight, it didn’t bowl me over in the slightest.  Finding Gerwig’s titular character vapid, vain, and selfish, I just couldn’t get into the film and struggled to even finish it.  Gerwig’s popped up here and there in the following years, to better results, in Mistress America, Jackie, and 20th Century Women but it’s Lady Bird where our fences can be considered mended.

A thinly veiled but admittedly autobiographical look at Gerwig’s years as a teen in Sacramento in the late ‘90s, Lady Bird is going to be compared to Juno and with just cause.  Both are female led films that find a truth to their portrayal of adolescence and an authenticity in how teens and adults struggle to find common ground while just trying to make it through the day.  The difference between the two is that looking back at Juno it seems like it arrived from another wacky dimension while Lady Bird is already a period piece so there’s less chance of it becoming rapidly dated.

About to enter her senior year of high school, Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan, How I Live Now) demands that her family and friends call her Lady Bird and wants to attend college as far away from her Northern California town as possible.  She dreams of a life surrounded by arts and artists, while her mother (Laurie Metcalf, Uncle Buck) wants her daughter to come down from the clouds and understand that community college may be the best she can do.  With a father (Tracy Letts, The Post) that just lost his job and a brother living at home with his goth girlfriend, there isn’t much space for Lady Bird to breathe.

A small chance at happiness shows up in the drama department’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along.  Cast in the ensemble, she falls for the leading man (Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea) who is both her first love and first heartbreak.  Feeling like she has to climb higher socially than she can sticking by her best friend (Beanie Feldstein, who was wonderful in Broadway’s Hello Dolly!) she ingratiates herself with the popular girl (Odeya Rush, Goosebumps) and takes up with an alt-emo boy (Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name).  As the school year draws to a close and the great unknown future awaits, Lady Bird will learn tough lessons about finding one’s place and making a unique path toward happiness.

As she did in Brooklyn, Ronan is able to find a mainline to your heart without making it seem like a huge effort.  That’s surprising because her Brooklyn character was warm and selfless, and Lady Bird is anything but that.  Constantly sucking the air from any room she’s in and preventing others from finding their own orbit, Lady Bird is a force of nature and while it can be easy to get frustrated with her it’s just as easy to feel her pain as dreams she makes for herself vanish just as fast as they take shape.  If you’ve ever heard Gerwig talk it’s instantly clear that her voice comes through loud and clear not only in Ronan’s performance (Ronan channels Gerwig in eerie ways) but in the thoughts and ideas expressed by other characters.

Ronan isn’t the only star of the show here, though.  She gets the movie stolen away from here more than a few times by Metcalf as her steely mother.  Though the movie opens with mother and daughter waking up staring into each other’s eyes, both women soon wind up in an argument that bursts whatever peaceful bubble they had formed.  Scene after we scene we see Metcalf deliberately divert attention away from her daughter if she feels she’s getting too big for her britches or cast a spotlight on her when she makes the wrong move.  It sounds bad, but she’s doing what every parent tries to do but doesn’t always succeed in…help their child see that life is tough with the least amount of outside pain as possible.  It’s easy to see part of oneself in these moments when a child will push their parent’s buttons or the parent cuts their teen down just to prove their point.  I know I winced a few times when I recognized actions I’ve had in my own life.

If you’re already a fan of Gerwig’s, you’re going to get a lot of satisfaction out of her directorial debut which will likely earn her a place on the shortlist for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.  Expect Ronan and Metcalf to earn nominations as well for their deeply felt and carefully layered performances. If you’re just coming around to Gerwig like I am you’ll find it easier than ever to use Lady Bird to fly back into the fold.

Movie Review ~ Brooklyn

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The Facts:

Synopsis: An Irish immigrant lands in 1950s Brooklyn, where she quickly falls into a new romance. When her past catches up with her, however, she must choose between two countries and the lives that exist within.

Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters

Director: John Crowley

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 111 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (9.5/10)

Review: Here’s something you don’t get every day, a sweetly innocent romance that doesn’t oversell its charm and doesn’t make anyone a villain along the way.  Brooklyn was an unexpected delight, anchored by strong performances, a sensitive script adapted from a heartfelt novel, and tender direction that underplays without ever resting on its heels.

A wallflower working for a shrewish shop owner in 1950s Ireland, Eilis (a ravishing Saoirse Ronan, How I Live Now) is given the chance for a new life in America when her sister makes arrangements for her to travel to a new country with new opportunities.  Her sister stays back to care for their aging mother and invests her dreams with her sister as she sends her on her way.  The journey is hard and the adjustment difficult but soon Eilis has created a place and purpose for herself where previously it never existed.

Living in an all-female boarding house run by Mrs. Keogh (a splendid Julie Walters, Paddington), Eilis works in a department store and attends Friday night dances put on by the parish that sponsored her trip.  Expecting to meet another Irish immigrant, she’s instead romanced by a shy but persistent New York native (Emory Cohen, The Gambler) who courts her in a most old-fashioned way.  She meets his family, considers a future with him and then…plans change.

What makes Brooklyn so special is that it presents choices for our leading lady in a time when women didn’t always have a say in what their lives had in store for them.  And it goes further than that, making clear that either decision that Eilis contemplates holds promise of a full life.  No one is colored as malicious (at least none of the main characters are) and there is no “bad guy” to be found.  To introduce that factor would mean that there was a “right” choice to make.  As audience members we know what we want her to do, but there’s trust established that lets us know she has her head on straight.

Ronan was one of the younger actresses ever to be nominated for an Oscar for her brilliant work in 20074’s Atonement and she’s likely making her way into the Best Actress nominees this year for her beautifully realized performance.  Cohen, too, has charm to spare and I found myself smiling at his sincerity as the would-be tough New Yorker expresses his feelings for his Irish lass.  Domhnall Gleeson (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) hits the right notes as an Irish suitor for Eilis as does Jim Broadbent (Cloud Atlas) as a priest that provides support for Eilis while in America.

More than anything, I wished for Brooklyn to go on longer…I wanted to know more about these people, their lives, their hopes, and their dreams.  It wouldn’t be hard to imagine another movie (or TV series…hint hint hint) fashioned around the boarding house run by Julie Walters.  There’s rich material there and from the various women we meet during our brief visits there’s more than enough laughs and tears to fuel new story ideas.

Directed by John Crowley (Closed Circuit) and adapted by Nick Hornby (Wild) from the novel by Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn is surely one of the best films you’re likely to see in 2015 (or 2016, now that you’re reading this).  Make the journey, it’s worth the trip.

The Silver Bullet ~ Brooklyn

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Synopsis: In 1950s Ireland and New York, young Ellis Lacey has to choose between two men and two countries.

Release Date: November 6, 2015

Thoughts: After making an impressive (and Oscar-nominated) debut in 2007’s Atonement, Saoirse Ronan has found herself in a diverse line-up of roles/films that have shown she’s not a one-trick pony.  From the post-Twilight teen romance The Host to Wes Anderson’s zany masterpiece The Grand Budapest Hotel to the bold (and woefully underseen) How I Live Now, Ronan seems to favor keeping her options and not being pigeon-holed in any one genre.

Tackling another period piece in Brooklyn (based on the novel by Colm Tóibín), Ronan looks like she has another small winner on her hands.  Then again, I’m a sucker for films set in this era so it’s not a shocker that I’m looking forward to this tale of an Irish immigrant making a go of it in 1950s New York City. Director John Crowley last helmed the so-so Closed Circuit in 2013 but his screenwriter is Nick Hornby (About a Boy, Wild) who knows a thing or two about what it takes to bring a novel to life.  Arriving after the summer din and before the holiday rush, here’s hoping it’s as good as it looks.