Category Archives: Archived Movies

Archived Movies

ARMAGEDDON TIME

Producers: Anthony Katagas, Marc Butan, Rodrigo Teixeira   Director: James Gray   Screenplay: James Gray   Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Anthony Hopkins, Banks Repeta, Jaylin Webb, Tovah Feldshuh, John Diehl, Andrew Polk, Ryan Sell, Jacob Mackinnon, Marcia Haufrecht, Domenick Lombardozzi, Dane West, Landon James Forlenza, Marcia Jean Kurtz, John Dinello, Richard Bekins, Teddy Coluca and Jessica Chastain   Distributor: Focus Features

Grade: A

Coming-of-age stories ordinarily take an inspirational turn, and in semi-autobiographical ones nostalgia usually turns into sappiness.  Writer-director James Gray’s contribution to the genre avoids falling into that trap: it’s more troubling than uplifting, an emotionally complex story about Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), the writer-director’s surrogate, living in Queens in 1980.  Paul has a loving though fractious family, and as an eleven-year old sixth grader undergoes experiences that shake his confidence in his parents and teach him difficult truths about American society.  “Life isn’t fair,” his father tells him toward the close, which pretty much sums up the message Paul learns, realizing that no one played he superhero role he childishly dreamed of filling himself.  

Paul’s family includes his bullying older brother Ted (Ryan Sell) and their parents, Esther (Anne Hathaway), a home economics teacher who’s also president of his public school’s PTA, and Irving (Jeremy Strong), an engineer (and son of a plumber).  But their house is also a gathering place for his maternal grandparents Aaron Rabinowicz (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Mickey (Tovah Feldshuh), both retired schoolteachers, his Aunt Ruth (Marcia Haufrecht), a Holocaust survivor, and Uncle Louis (Teddy Coluca).  Their dinner-table conversations are raucous affairs where Aaron often plays sage mediator as bickering is the order of the day.

Aaron is also the only person who really understands and encourages Paul, who imagines becoming an artist while Irving expects him to get a useful paying occupation.  Paul lives in a sort of fantasy world, believing that his family is rich and that as head of the PTA Esther governs the school. The boy is also a jokester, who earns the ire of his teacher Mr. Turkeltaub (Andrew Polk) by drawing a caricature of him as a turkey.  A classmate, Johnny (Jaylin Webb), also disrupts the class, but Paul notices that Turkeltaub treats Johnny, the only black in the room, far more harshly. 

The two boys bond over their common outsider status, and Johnny, a poor but genial kid who lives with his increasingly confused grandmother, is repeating a grade and has dreams of his own (he has a collection of NASA patches and longs to join the space race), introduces Paul to the art of playing hooky—they run away from a class trip to the Guggenheim Museum (Paul paid for Johnny’s fee, and Johnny forged his grandmother’s name to the permission slip) to go to an arcade.  But when Johnny introduces his pal to marijuana, Irving goes ballistic—the scene in which he breaks down a door, removes his belt and thrashes his terrified son is pretty fierce.

The upshot is that after the public school principal (John Dinello) suggests that Paul might need remedial classes, his parents decide to transfer him, with Aaron’s help, to Forest Manor, the posh private school Ted already attends.  The shock is immediate: on his first day he’s accosted in the hall by a creepy man (John Diehl) who directs him to an assembly where the headmaster (Richard Bekins) introduces the guy as Fred Trump, a major benefactor; and the assembly is addressed by a special guest, Trump’s daughter Maryanne (Jessica Chastain), already an Assistant United States Attorney, who tells the students that success in life will be determined by hard work, ignoring the social and economic realities that already make them a privileged elite.

Paul is drawn into the life of the school, even making some friends among the students, but the rigorous attitude of the teachers leaves the dreamy kid anxious and uncertain.  But a wall has already arisen between him and Johnny, and when his old comrade approaches him from the other side of the fence that separates the recess area from the street, Paul ends the conversation quickly, and says nothing when his new classmates make racist remarks.  Aaron chastises him for his silence, and Paul decides to help Johnny, first by letting him stay in the clubhouse in his back yard when social services threaten to send him to foster care, and then by hatching a plot for them to steal a computer from Forest Manor, pawn it, and use the proceeds to run away.  Naturally the plan goes haywire, and it’s the aftermath involving a cop (Domenick Lombardozzi) that cements the realization Paul first felt in the initial classroom scene–that people are treated very differently by the system, depending on luck, on their circumstances, and on their race.              

The title of Gray’s cinematic memoir conflates two sources.  One is an interview Ronald Reagan gave to televangelist Pat Robertson, in which the candidate emphasized the potential for a nuclear cataclysm; the Graff family is shown watching a clip of it, with Irving dismissing the California governor as a shmuck before Paul hears his classmates at Forest Manor chanting his name approvingly.  The second reference is to reggae artist Wiili Williams’ song “Armagideon Time,” which is heard near the start and then fully, in The Clash’s version, at the close.  Its lyrics include the lines “A lot of people won’t get no supper tonight, A lot of people won’t get no justice tonight, The battle is gettin’ hotter In this iration, Armagideon time / A lot of people runnin’ and a hiding tonight, A lot of people won’t get no justice tonight, Remember to kick it over, No one will guide you, Armagideon time.”  Put them together, and the movie’s point is clear: looking back at his past, Gray’s concludes that the inequities in today’s United States, and the threat of destruction they pose, started with Reagan and have only metastasized over time.  So is his remorse for not having stood up against the pull of that “conservatism,” even as a kid.

That’s a pretty heavy message for a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age movie, but Gray pulls it off without getting sanctimonious or maudlin.  The secret lies not just in the toughness of the message itself, but the layered fashion in which Gray dramatizes it.  The story is told from Paul’s perspective, but through the scrim of Gray’s own reimagining of it, and is marked more by magic realism than realism as such.  That also means that the characters are seen through the eyes of an awkward kid clumsily trying to make sense of what’s happening around him.  Thus in Hopkins’ hands Aaron emerges as a cultivated, sensitive man with a bearing that reflects his English upbringing and a nobility of spirit that allows for compromise when it’s called for, as well as a gleeful spirit that makes him Paul’s best buddy and confidante.  Without revealing too much, it’s safe to say that few will fail to be moved by his final scenes.  By contrast Mickey and Ruth are Eastern Europeans who carry with them the scars of their families’ mistreatment there, while Louis is a mostly silent schlub.

All of them, however, are secular Jews who espouse the conventional progressive views of the time, as noted in their attitude toward Reagan.  Yet they show themselves to be carelessly prejudiced, though embarrassed when they show such entrenched attitudes.  Esther and Irving are also prone to bouts of temper, especially when they’re disappointed in Paul’s obliviousness to the realities of their circumstances and his propensity to act out.  Hathaway and Strong, hardly the first actors one might expect to be playing these characters, prove to be inspired choices for the roles, capturing their complexity and imperfections superbly, with Irving’s admission of his fears and regrets at the close heartbreakingly real.

As for the youngsters, Webb is open-faced and gregarious as Johnny; given the boy’s turbulent life, one might be surprised at the portrait drawn of a generally happy kid, but this is, of course, Paul’s recollection of the friend whom, in the end, he turned away from.  Repeta, meanwhile, brings a tremulous quality to Paul that’s deeply affecting.  It reflects a child’s desperation at trying meet adult expectations and terrified of failing.  He also manages to pull off a few imaginary sequences, like that in which he dreams that one of his drawings is being applauded by an adoring crowd at the Guggenheim, introduced by the very docent (Marcia Jean Kurtz) who leads the class tour there.

With exceptional work from production designer Jack Fisk and costumer Heidi Bivens in capturing the period flavor (and the ambience of the Graff homestead and of the two very different schools), the film benefits from Diego Garcia’s cinematography, which ranges from luminous to darkly menacing as called for, and is often virtuosic—witness a scene in which Paul sets off a home-made rocket and, after jubilantly dancing over its launch, rushes to catch it parachuting down in the distance.   Robert Frazen and Lucian Johnston’s editing is similarly skilled, with some sequences—like Irving’s furious beating of Paul—shaped as brilliant montages.

Except for those who underplay its artistry in reaction to its political message, this will resonate as one of the most piercingly honest coming-of-age films in years.

Archived Movies

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

Producers: Graham Broadbent, Peter Czernin and Martin McDonagh   Director: Martin McDonagh   Screenplay: Martin McDonagh   Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, Gary Lydon, Pat Shortt, Jon Kenny, Sheila Flitton, David Pearse, Bríd Ní Neachtain and Aaron Monaghan   Distributor: Searchlight Pictures

Grade: A-

At once a bleakly funny and surprisingly poignant tale of broken families and broken friendships, playwright Martin McDonagh’s fourth film as a writer-director reunites Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, the co-stars of his first, “In Bruges.” Its setting is very different from that darkly seriocomic crime thriller, but it inhabits the same territory of mordant humor mixed with discord and pain where all of McDonagh’s work, for both stage and screen, has been located.    

Inisherin is a small island off Ireland’s west coast.  In the spring of 1923, specifically on April 1 of that year, when the so-called Irish Civil War between the provisional government of the Irish Free State established by the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and the Irish Republican Army that opposed the treaty is still raging, burly Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson), a fiddler and composer of folk tunes, announces to Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell), his daily drinking companion, that he wants nothing more to do with him; refusing even to respond to Pádraic’s knocks at his window, he merely tells the incredulous fellow that he doesn’t like him anymore.  It’s a sudden rupture that reflects the one that continuing between fighters who’d been partners in the Irish War of Independence, the violence of which can sometimes be discerned occurring on the mainland.  And like that conflict, it results in the shedding of blood and flesh.

At first Pádraic, noticing the date, assumes that Colm’s break with him is an April’s Fool joke.  But Doherty is adamant, the only explanation he ever offers being that he no longer wants to waste time on the trivial chitchat he’s been exchanging with the simple, clueless Súilleabháin, who shares a ramshackle house with his bookish, disaffected sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon) and his beloved miniature donkey Jenny; declaring Pádraic dull (to which his sister responds, “He’s always ben dull”), Colm now prefers to spend his days composing and sharing his skill with outsiders like Declan (Aaron Monaghan), who come to jam and study with him. 

Devastated by Colm’s rejection, Pádraic badgers him to reconsider.  Finally infuriated by the intrusions, Colm issues an ultimatum: every time Pádraic speaks to him, he’ll cut off one of his own fingers. Certainly he’s not serious, one thinks, but this is McDonagh terrain, and you shouldn’t discount an obstinate man’s words.

While this mini-war is waging, the few other characters in the village observe the bizarre goings-on while getting on with their own lives.  Jovial barman Jonjo (Pat Shortt) endeavors to keep the peace in the pub while perpetual customer Gerry (Jon Kenny) looks on uncomprehending.  Mentally challenged Dominic Kearney (Barry Keoghan), repeatedly brutalized by his father Peadar (Gary Lydon), the brutish local constable, struggles to connect with his neighbors, acts as a surprisingly shrewd sounding-board for confused Pádraic and shyly proposes to Siobhán, who tries to be kind in rejecting him while debating whether she should leave the island—and her brother—for more promising prospects elsewhere.  The village priest (David Pearse) seems at a loss to contend with the locals’ problems, prodding Colm in the confessional about the dangers of despair until the supposed penitent’s snappy responses leave him fuming, while gossip Mrs. O’Riordan (Bríd Ní Neachtain) aims to know everything about everybody, even prying open letters in the post to scan people’s secrets and then rebuking anyone who complains that they never tell her anything.  And lurking behind every corner is aged harpy Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton), a crone dressed in black who issues waspish prophecies in a vinegary tone with malicious satisfaction.  Even the animals—Jenny and Colm’s ever-loyal Border collie—are drawn into the conflict that ultimately seems to overtake the entire island, leaving embittered desolation in its wake.

“The Banshees of Inisherin” is like a dark twentieth-century fairytale, carrying almost mythic overtones, with a sense of time and place masterfully caught by McDonagh and his collaborators.  Production designer Mark Tildesley, costumer Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh and cinematographer Ben Davis, using locations on Inishmore and Achill Island to often stunning effect in his widescreen visuals, and editor Mikkel E.G. Nielsen create a feel both ruggedly real yet somehow otherworldly, while Carter Burwell adds a suitably distinctive score.  The script is innately theatrical, having more in common with McDonagh’s stage work than his other films, but thanks to their efforts it never seems stagey.

And the performances are impeccable.  Gleeson brings his gruffness and bellicosity to Colm, making him a veritable force of nature, as implacable as the island cliffs or the stone walls lining its roads even as his digital losses mount.  In what might very well be the best acting he’s ever done, Farrell brings a sweet, sad soulfulness to Pádraic, though as his losses mount, an embarrassed steeliness creeps in (witness the cruel trick he plays on Declan to get him to depart).  In that case, however, he immediately regrets what he’s done; at the end, he’s become as stone cold and determined as Colm.

All the rest of the cast fit perfectly with McDonagh’s conception, but two must be singled out: Condon, who is luminous as Siobhán, whose desire to escape what she sees as a place of petty men is perfectly understandable, and Keoghan, whose turn as Dominic is mannered, but in a fashion that reveals the character rather than turning it into a caricature of the town fool.

“The Banshees of Inishiren” is a satisfyingly odd Gaelic fable, combining whimsy with bitter truths about human frailty.  Its combination of humor and gruesomeness is typical of McDonagh, and shows him at the peak of his wonderfully idiosyncratic game.