Uncut Gems is the pick of the week
So, I lied about this being my last batch of 2019 reviews. I had to split it in two, so my actual final group will be out in a couple of weeks, but my top ten list will probably be out before then, because now I have seen all the movies I wanted to see from last year- I just haven’t finished reviewing them. So look for my top ten next week, and for this week the movie I’d recommend is Uncut Gems, even though it’s probably not for everyone and I can well imagine some people hating it. Still, it’s worth seeing for sure.
KLAUS * * * (Dir. Sergio Pablos)
Always room for a good Christmas movie to emerge
It’s always nice to run into unexpected surprises, and Klaus is a charmingly pleasant little debut from Sergio Pablos, who worked at Disney during the 1990’s renaissance era and has now started his own animation studio run out of Madrid, Spain. Jason Schwartzman voices Jesper, a wealthy, overly privileged, ne’er do well son of a postmaster general, whose father sends him to Smeerensberg, practically the ends of the earth, and tells him he’s basically exiled until he can post 6000 letters from its inhabitants. So a miserable Jesper tries to figure out how he can con these people into using the postal service, runs into Klaus (J.K. Simmons) a mysterious woodsman/toymaker, and lo and behold, the various Santa myths begin to take root as children start writing letters to the toy man and he and Jesper team up to deliver them in the middle of the night so that the town’s feuding families don’t catch on to the joy being brought to their kids (who are raised to be lifelong enemies, ala Hatfields and McCoys). The movie is quite amusing, with a quirky sense of humor and moves along at a brisk pace, with a 2D digital animation style that’s highly refreshing in an age of constant CGI from most American animation studios. It’s easy to see it becoming a holiday staple actually, since the gold standard for “origin of Santa” movies is probably Rankin-Bass’ 1970 TV movie Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, with Fred Astaire as the mailman/narrator. Which is to say, there’s definitely room for more here, and now we’ve got one.
WAVES * * * (Dir. Trey Edward Schults)
Family pressure leads to a boiling point
Waves is a tragedy, a universal story of loss that happens to one family and can happen to any of us. Kelvin Harrison, Jr. stars as Tyler, a high school senior and wrestler, who faces enormous pressure from his overly stern father (Sterling K. Brown) to accomplish high achievements in everything, from school to sports to after school work for his parents’ business. He says he’s hard on his son because he has to be, because he must be ten times better than everyone to be recognized as equal. But Ty feels nothing but the weight of criticism and pressure, not love or affection. It drives him to keep secrets when things go wrong, when his life, which was headed in one direction is suddenly upended and falls at full speed in another. Director Trey Edward Schults takes his visual storytelling cues from Barry Jenkins, whose films Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk are experienced through feeling and emotion over dialogue and plot conventions. Waves is done in a similar fashion, until the halfway point, when a sudden tragedy shakes the family and changes their lives forever. At that point the story changes, and is now told from a new perspective, that of Tyler’s little sister Emily (Taylor Russell), only glimpsed in the background in family scenes during the first half. This abrupt change is jarring and asks you to essentially start the movie over from a new point of view, thus losing quite a bit of momentum, which had built significantly through following Tyler’s life. It’s interesting as an experiment in storytelling, but not as involving as it when it began.
BOMBSHELL * * 1/2 (Dir. Jay Roach)
The women of Fox News take down predator boss Roger Ailes
Bombshell might be reasonably entertaining if it was airing on HBO, but even then it leaves a lot to be desired. Jay Roach (who in fact directed both Recount and Game Change for HBO), decides with this material that he wants to ape the style of Adam McKay, and goes back and forth from a kind of satiric tone where characters occasionally talk directly to the camera while random cameos from Fox News on-air personalities drop in every three minutes, to a more serious one, as the crimes of Fox CEO Roger Ailes were too horrific to gloss over with satire. The result is a muddled, uneven film that benefits from a couple of really strong performances from Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly and John Lithgow as Roger Ailes. Theron in particular really disappears into character, dropping her voice an octave and changing her speech pattern, while also being given prosthetics that change her face shape to resemble Megyn Kelly’s, and Lithgow is is believable and funny as the old creep still preying on women at every chance. Nicole Kidman plays Gretchen Carlson, who initiates the takedown of Ailes when she’s fired and decides to sue him personally for sexual harassment, an act which caused dozens of other women to come forward against him, including Kelly. The movie keeps the focus on Ailes and doesn’t delve much into the culture of Fox News, which was created partially as a propaganda arm of the Republican party, but also (perhaps even 50%) as a feeding trough for predators like him and many other men to hire women who look a certain way, will say certain things and do certain things for the betterment of their careers. The movie could take a much deeper and harder look into the willingness of women who want to work at Fox in the first place, women who want to spew racist and sexist propaganda without being harassed at work while doing it. Of course, bringing up those hypocrisies will not allow for a completely heroic portrayal of the women who finally brought Ailes down after decades of this behavior. Theron comes closest to giving Megyn Kelly shades of villainy in her indifference to other women who’ve been harassed, as her sole interest seems to be in furthering her own ambitions, but the inclusion of Margot Robbie as a fictionalized composite of women who worked at Fox suffers from wildly varying characterization from scene to scene, first as a crazed evangelical, then as a supportive bisexual, then as a tearful scolder of Megyn Kelly for not protecting women. Who is this person? It distracts from the story of the actual public figures and makes no sense in the movie at all.
UNCUT GEMS * * * 1/2 (Dir. Josh and Benny Safdie)
A kinetic ride through NYC’s underbelly
The Safdie Brothers direct the pure, adrenaline fueled Uncut Gems as a shock to the system, one that never lets up or lets you out of your seat until it’s over. It’s a manic energy rush, with Adam Sandler delivering the kind of knockout performance you’d have never thought he was really capable of. This is a seedy, dirty movie, one about the underbelly of a certain criminal subsection of New York City- a jewelry store owner in debt up to his eyeballs from gambling and one who’s constantly conning everyone he talks to, from his customers to his family members and his colleagues. That’s Howard Ratner (Sandler), an obviously wealthy man whose life is in constant flux, who’s divorcing his wife and having trouble with his girlfriend, who wants to make a big sale to an NBA player (Kevin Garnett) and make millions betting on his game. He bought a rare black opal that was smuggled into the country from Ethiopia and passes it around from Garnett to a high priced auction, all while being targeted by bookies set on collecting from him what they’re owed. This high stress, anxiety riddled situation places him in a blender of conflicting clashes with all kinds of malcontented characters who come in and out of the screen, leaving no time or room for you to catch your breath. Sandler is fantastic as an amoral, self-destructive guy who you’re not exactly rooting for but can’t take your eyes off of, but the real star is the filmmaking, as if the Safdies directed a modern day version of Jules Dassin’s Night and the City on uppers. It’s a chest-pounding, immersive experience that leaves you feeling spent, but it’s also unshakeable.
