Mental illness

The Leisure Seeker

Link posted on by moviebloke

(Italy / France 2018)

Paolo Virzì’s last film, Like Crazy (https://moviebloke.com/2016/10/17/like-crazy-la-pazza-gioia/), won me over with its quirky lead characters, their wacky antics, and the surprisingly moving turn the story takes. His follow up, The Leisure Seeker, which also happens to be his first English language feature film, employs a similar template — Massachusetts golden girl Ella Spencer (Helen Mirren) has arranged a trip with her husband, John (Donald Sutherland), a retired literature professor, to Key West. The purpose of the trip is to see the Ernest Hemingway House, something John always wanted to do but never got around to it. They board their trusty old Winnebago from the Seventies — they named it “The Leisure Seeker” — and slip away without telling anyone.

While reigniting passions and having revelations over the course of their excursion, what really prompted the trip becomes apparent: John is suffering a bad case of Alzheimer’s that gets worse by the day. Ella is dealing with the effects of her own condition as well. Naturally, their middle aged kids (Christian McKay and Janel Moloney) freak when they find out what they’re up to.

Based on Michael Zadoorian’s novel of the same name, the topic here is a worthy one: deciding when to call it a wrap. Mirren and Sutherland give fine performances with strong chemistry and realistic intimacy, and the best moments are just as tender as the ones in Like Crazy. Still, The Leisure Seeker somehow comes off as diluted, perhaps aiming too hard for a wide audience. It shows in the screenplay, which has a lot of weak spots and relies on sentimentality too heavily for its own good.

The situations Ella and John get into might be sweet, but they don’t move beyond silly hijinks. They’re pretty easy, actually. Hilarity ensues, for example, when a cop (Robert Walker Branchaud) pulls John over for swerving, when a roadside punk (Sean Michael Weber) tries to rob the couple while they wait stranded for a tow, and later when John wanders into a Donald Trump rally. The Leisure Seeker isn’t quite the compelling film it had the potential to be.

With Dana Ivey, Dick Gregory, Leander Suleiman, Ahmed Lucan, Gabriella Cila, David Marshall Silverman, Lucy Catherine Haskill, Joshua Hoover, Kirsty Mitchell, Mylie Stone, Joshua Mikel, Rayan Clay Gwaltney, Matt Mercurio, Marc Fajardo, Wayne Hall, Denitra Isler, Carl Bradfield, Roger Lee Bright, Chelle Ramos, Joe Hardy Jr., Jerald Jay Savage, Nicholas Barrera, Danielle Deadwyler, Robert Pralgo, Lilia Pino Blouin, Rusty Hodgdon, Ariel Kaplan, Geoffrey D. Williams, Carlos Guerrero, Karen Valero

Production: Indiana Production Company, BAC Films, Rai Cinema, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo (MiBACT), Regione Lazio

Distribution: 01 Distribution (Italy), BAC Films (France), Sony Pictures Classics (USA), Concorde Filmverleih (Germany), Filmcoopi Zürich (Switzerland), Filmladen (Austria), Imagine Filmdistributie Nederland (Netherlands), Imagine (Belgium), Norsk Filmdistribusjon (Norway), StraDa Films – Seven Films (Greece), United International Pictures (UIP) (Poland), GAGA (Japan), Shaw Organisation (Singapore)

112 minutes
Rated R

(AMC River East) C-

Chicago International Film Festival

http://sonyclassics.com/theleisureseeker/

 

My Friend Dahmer

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2017)

“You don’t have to suffer to be a poet,” said writer John Ciardi. “Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.” Even the most notorious evildoer was once just a kid, and infamous cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is no exception. My Friend Dahmer portrays him as a gawky teenage reject struggling to find a place where he fits.

Bath, Ohio, in the mid-1970s: young Jeff (Ross Lynch) is a high school freshman who lives with his parents, chemist Lionel (Dallas Roberts) and Joyce (Anne Heche), and his little brother, Dave (Liam Koeth). It’s a normal middle class nuclear existence, except for his mother’s mental illness, his parents’ bickering, and his odd pastime of collecting roadkill and dissolving the carcasses in a vat of acid his father gave him. There’s also his obsession with a rather bearish jogger (Vincent Kartheiser) Jeff frequently sees running past his house.

Jeff’s not making it at school, where his classmates look past him, probably because he’s so fucking weird. Out of apparent fearful concern for his loner son, Lionel demands that Jeff make some friends after he discovers a collection of bones stashed away in Jeff’s hideout in the woods.

Jeff fakes an epileptic seizure in the cafeteria at school and attracts the attention of Derf Backderf (Alex Wolff) and his friends, Neil (Tommy Nelson) and Mike (Harrison Holzer), who get a kick out of him and his antics. They start hanging out with Jeff and form “The Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club,” a front for pulling pranks because they can get Jeff to do anything — even finagling a meeting with Vice President Walter Mondale (Tom Luce) on a class trip to Washington, D.C.

Jeff seems to be connecting to others for the first time, but his disintegrating home life throws off his progress.

Adapted from Cleveland artist Derf Backderf’s graphic novel, screenwriter and director Marc Meyers eschews gore and focuses on psychology, examining what may have happened to send Dahmer where he ended up. His approach is surprisingly empathetic and understanding without making excuses. Backderf offers unique insight that Meyers uses wisely. The acting, particularly that of Lynch and Wolff, lends a sensitivity that initially might seem unwarranted if not unworthy of the subject. The story here is sad, really: no gore, no murders, just a weird kid whose home life is falling apart.

My Friend Dahmer is a mix of teen comedy and tragedy that ends immediately before his first murder. It’s much better than I anticipated.

With Adam Kroloff, Brady M.K. Dunn, Michael Ryan Boehm, Cameron McKendry, Jake Ingrassia, Ben Zgorecki, Kris Smith, Jack DeVillers, Gabriela Novogratz, Miles Robbins, Joey Vee, Susan Bennett, Maryanne Nagel, Andrew Gorell, Katie Stottlemire, Carmen Gangale, Sydney Jane Meyer, Dave Sorboro, Denny Sanders

Production: Ibid Filmworks, Aperture Entertainment, Attic Light Films

Distribution: FilmRise, Altitude Film Entertainment

107 minutes
Rated R

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B

http://www.myfrienddahmerthemovie.com/#1

Captain Fantastic

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Captain Fantastic came out last summer, and I wanted to see it then. I must confess, the cast interested me more than the plot.

Viggo Mortensen is the aptly named Ben Cash, a long disenfranchised survivalist who is, like, so over American capitalism and politics. He and his wife, Leslie (Trin Miller), shown almost entirely in flashback, decide to raise their six kids—three boys and three girls—off the grid in the mountain wilderness of Washington State. Removed from society, Ben and Leslie teach their kids everything from logic and philosophy to hunting and gathering to Norman Mailer and Guns ‘n’ Roses. They do it all without iPhones or religion. Kudos to that!

Nothing is perfect: Leslie suddenly dies, forcing Ben to take his feral kids into the outside 21st Century world for the first time, ever—which calls everything they planned for their family into question.

Director and screenwriter Matt Ross poses some interesting questions about society, conformity, and the social contract in a provocative and often lighthearted way. However, Captain Fantastic is not terribly surprising, which is why it doesn’t work as well as it could. At heart, it’s a standard fish out of water dramedy. Frankly, I spotted every “twist” coming before it got to me: the cop (Rex Young) who pulls over their Partridge Family van, the mildly blasphemous excuse that saves the day, the family’s visit to the supermarket, their reaction to their extended family (and vice versa), that lame scene in which Ben’s sister-in-law (Kathryn Hahn) calls him out onto the carpet for his choices and his youngest daughter (Shree Crooks) recites the Constitution to prove her wrong, eldest son Bo (George MacKay) proposing to the first girl who gives him attention—a trailer park teen queen (Erin Moriarty)—and the colleges he manages to get into, the “situation” that requires modern medical attention. Meh.

For all its grandiose intentions to take on the establishment, Captain Fantastic actually relies on a rather orthodox and pedestrian approach to make its point. Maybe that is its point, that you can’t escape society. It doesn’t mater: this story is predictable and sentimental, two things that never bode well. I expected more than Spokane Swiss Family Brady Bunch, which is essentially what this is. The one thing that saves this film from total mediocrity is the acting, which is great all around.

With Frank Langella, Ann Dowd, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Charlie Shotwell, Steve Zahn, Elijah Stevenson, Teddy Van Ee

Production: Electric City Entertainment, ShivHans Pictures

Distribution: Bleecker Street, Universal Pictures

118 minutes
Rated R

(iTunes rental) C

http://www.bleeckerstreetmedia.com/captainfantastic

Split

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Poor Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy). His mother (Rosemary Howard) abused him when he was a child, and he developed split personalities to deal with it. Now, he’s got a thing for watching underage girls dance naked. Dennis, the sternest of Kevin’s personalities, has asserted control and drives him to kidnap three teenage girls (Anya Taylor-Joy, Jessica Sula, and Haley Lu Richardson) leaving a birthday party at a lame Chuck E. Cheese place. He locks them up in a dungeon in his underground industrial hideout. Kevin is undergoing psychiatric care, but his doctor (Betty Buckley from Eight is Enough) senses something horribly amiss when she receives email from each of his 23 personalities seeking an urgent appointment. Kevin’s personalities prepare the girls for the arrival of “the Beast,” the last and most powerful personality. Only one of them is poised to survive.

WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead!

M. Night Shyamalan’s Split is, in a word, stupid. The story has potential, but it suffers a major breakdown pretty quickly. It’s more silly than scary. I found myself tracking horror movie clichés like a checklist and asking how many more can fit into the plot. I saw the so-called twists coming before they turned the corner. The reference to another movie at the end is mildly amusing, I guess, but not what I’d call clever. The parallel to one kidnapped girl’s childhood, shown in flashbacks, warrants a great big ‘whatever.’ The only thing Split has going for it is McAvoy, who emulates Jude Law doing an impression of Eminem impersonating Justin Timberlake. His characters are fun, particularly severe schoolmarm type Patricia (for whom McAvoy wears heels) and little boy Hedwig. However, even they get tiresome, coming off as a mishmosh of standup routines after awhile, like sticking all of the characters from Little Britain into one body.

I could make a lame comment about replacing “pl” with “h” in the title and getting a far more accurate name for this film, but I’ll just say I wasn’t impressed and leave it at that.

With Izzie Coffey, Sebastian Arcelus, Brad William Henke, Neal Huff, Bruce Willis

Production: Blinding Edge Pictures and Blumhouse Productions

Distribution: Universal Pictures

117 minutes
Rated PG-13

(ArcLight) D

http://www.splitmovie.com

Like Crazy [La pazza gioia]

Video posted on by moviebloke

(Italy 2016)

The festival program called Paolo Virzì’s Like Crazy a “hysterical, edgy comedy,” which is not entirely accurate (http://www.chicagofilmfestival.com/film/like-crazy/). For sure, the premise is fun: two female mental patients escape on a city bus and head for an adventure that includes shopping, stealing cars, gambling, clubbing, and getting a sort of revenge on some of those who did them wrong. Plus, the patient who instigates the caper, MILFy Beatrice (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), is a hilarious character: an imperious namedropping motormouth who fabricates lie upon lie to get herself into (and out of) one shady shenanigan after another, she steamrolls everyone in her path for frivolity—more medication, booze, food, attention—and then condescends to them like they’re peons. Think of an Italian version of Patsy, Eddie, and Newhart‘s Stephanie rolled into one. Beatrice’s mere presence puts everyone on edge, not the least of whom are the nuns who run Villa Biondi, the mental hospital where she’s admitted indefinitely. The film is loaded with funny moments that poke fun at sex, religion, family, age, society, and status. There’s also a clever reference to Thelma and Louise.

For all its humor, though, Like Crazy has a sad underlying story: Donatella (Micaela Ramazzotti), a fragile wounded bird whom Beatrice drafts into her escapade, has a terribly dark past that includes trying to kill her infant son. The film takes a serious turn when Beatrice sets out to reunite him with Donatella. The two women become a support system, with the former serving as the latter’s rock until she discovers that she’s stronger than she thought even with her imperfections. Bruni Tedeschi and Ramazzotti are equally strong, and they operate with a nicely calibrated balance of outrageous and desperate. Aside from a rather random interlude with Beatrice’s ex-husband (Bob Messini), the story plays out damn near perfectly. Like Crazy is a joy but also very touching. My eyes were moist by the end—that caught me off guard, in a good way.

Side note: Vladan Radovic’s cinematography is gorgeously warm, bright, and summery throughout the film—a contrast that becomes more apparent as the mood here gets heavier. It’s a very nice touch.

116 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B+

Chicago International Film Festival

Christine

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

“In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in ‘blood and guts’ and in living color, you are going to see another first—attempted suicide.”

—Christine Chubbuck

During the summer of 1974, local television reporter Christine Chubbuck shot herself in the head on the air while presenting a live news segment at a small station in Sarasota, Florida. I’m not spoiling anything by saying Christine leads up to this jarring moment, but screenwriter Craig Shilowich and director Antonio Campos apparently aim to demonstrate why it happened. A dispositive answer never comes—it could have been a number of reasons, as the film suggests—but that’s because no one but Chubbuck knows for sure. Christine isn’t really about this singular moment, anyway—it’s an intense, sometimes humorous but thoroughly wrenching character study of the solitary woman behind it.

The first time we see Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall) is, appropriately, on a TV monitor: she’s alone in a room interviewing an imaginary Richard Nixon, aggressively grilling him on Watergate. She watches herself, taking notes on how she looks and sounds. She asks a passing colleague about her performance, probing as to whether she comes off as warm and human. This scene succinctly sets up Chubbuck’s dilemma: she wants to be a real journalist going after important newsworthy stories, not the fluff pieces about chickens she usually covers. The problem is, she doesn’t come off quite right: she’s awkward, brusque, combative, and not particularly “feminine,” characteristics that she’s all too aware thwart her chances of improving her lot with a spot as an anchor in a larger market.

Chubbuck lives with her mother (J. Smith-Cameron) and pines for a colleague, anchorman George (Michael C. Hall). She’s an idealist who fights her toxic boss (Tracy Letts) as he pushes to sensationalize the news for the sake of higher ratings. She’s obsessed with her work, which is increasingly unfulfilling. She’s also privately coming undone, something crystal clear from her depressed tendencies, wild mood swings, and bitter resentments toward others she thinks have it better in one way or another than she does.

The cast is spectacular, but it’s no surprise that Hall (Rebecca, not Michael C.) carries Christine—she has to. Hall owns the role: her performance is flawlessly mesmerizing. Resembling a severe Olive Oyl crossed with Wednesday Addams, she deftly uses body language and posture to convey Chubbuck’s uneasy and awkward intensity. Hall slowly and deliberately brings Chubbuck’s frustrations—with her boss, her career, and herself—to a rolling boil. The tone here is clinically journalistic, with the facts of Chubbuck’s situation laid out one by one and offered into evidence for the viewer to make what he or she will of them.

As I watched, I expected Christine to make some profound statement—something about the integrity of “news” in America, gender equality, idealism versus reality, mental health, all of the above. It plants the seeds, but it doesn’t quite get there—it’s either noncommittal or too subtle, I can’t tell which. About halfway through, I realized I wasn’t catching a clear message or a moral. Maybe there isn’t one. A reference to The Mary Tyler Moore Show can be interpreted as irony or cynicism, and it exemplifies Christine‘s ambiguous motive. The film has the feint whiff of exploitation, yet it still tells a lot about Christine Chubbuck and what pushed her over the edge. Christine is respectful to who she was, depicting her as far more than her final moment: she was smart, her peers respected her, she volunteered as a performer at a children’s hospital, and she struggled with many demons. If the actual event played out the way it does in this film, it was a chillingly snarky, mean way to make a point. If nothing else, Christine shows what depression can do to a person.

115 minutes
Rated R

(AMC River East) B

Chicago International Film Festival

Mad

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

I had the wrong idea walking into Mad; the synopsis in the festival guide painted a picture of a mean-spirited comedy about two fighting sisters and their mother who just had a nervous breakdown. I expected something along the lines of a loud, riotous snarkfest brimming with angry, deranged female humor that someone like Bette Midler might have done. Mad is not that at all—it’s far better.

First-time screenwriter and director Robert G. Putka drops us into the lives of three women: Mel (Maryann Plunkett), a lady starting her sunset years who just had a nervous breakdown following her divorce; her older daughter, Connie (Jennifer Lafleur), who has all the trappings of a yuppie life; and her younger daughter, Casey (Eilis Cahill), who is floundering as she quickly approaches her thirties. Mad explores the dynamics of the relationships between them without judgment or moralty, and gets into mental illness on the side.

The characters here are flawed, which makes the film not just believable but good. Very good. Mel may or may not be “crazy,” but she doesn’t step up to take control of her fate—which is exactly how she ends up committing herself to a psych ward. Connie is caustic—judgmental, condescending, insensitive, and extremely vocal, she can’t keep her malicious comments to herself. For some reason, her mother and her sister bring out her worst. A work situation involving a criminal investigation shows how far from perfect she really is. Casey is sweet but aimless, seemingly lacking any street smarts or ambition. She’s stuck—she tries to find herself in things like webcams, online hookups, and writing groups. It’s not working.

This all might sound heavy, but Mad has a sense of humor. An uncomfortable scene at Casey’s writing club is laugh-out-loud funny, but Putka generally doesn’t go for easy laughs. The humor here for the most part is subtle and has a basis in etiquette and social behavior. A fellow patient, Jerry (Mark Reeb), and the ward counselor, Todd (Conor Casey), both provide comic relief in different ways without becoming caricatures. The acting is quite good, and the whole thing is put together exceedingly well.

Putka doesn’t give much background on his characters, and that’s fine because it really isn’t necessary. He doesn’t treat mental illness like a Lifetime movie; he’s direct, objective, and not all that dramatic about it. He comes off a bit cynical, but I found his presentation refreshing; after all, therapy doesn’t work for everyone. I liked so much about Mad, which has many moments of brilliance. I hope to see more by Putka.

(Capitol Theatre) B+

Cleveland International Film Festival

http://madfilm2016.com

Welcome to Me

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2014)

What happens when a middle-aged bipolar lady (Kristen Wiig) on disability wins $89M in the California lottery and buys her own talk show about herself? One would expect hilarity to ensue, but the opposite happens: Alice Klieg makes a bigger, sadder mess out of things. Money really does change everything. Can she repair the damage?

I love Kristen Wiig, but she can go overboard on stupid. That’s what happened here: Welcome to Me is stupid but not all that funny. While the subject matter is darker, the ending is neat and predictable. It tries to make a grand point about mental illness—I suspect—but the effort falls flat. Here’s to the next project.

One big positive: the supporting cast. James Marsden and Wes Bentley as the scheming Ruskin brothers and a surprise appearance by Tim Robbins as Alice’s therapist are nice touches. Joan Cusack as Dawn, the cunty producer annoyed by Alice from the outset, is by far the best character—and probably the best performance here.

According to her bio on IMDB, director Shira Piven is the older sister of actor Jeremy.

(Music Box) C

http://www.welcometomemovie.com

Still Alice

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2014)

Julianne Moore is on a roll, and Still Alice keeps her rolling with one woman’s losing battle against a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Taking a more subtle approach to its subject matter, Still Alice is often difficult to watch even if it isn’t heavy-handed. Episodes of Alice, for example, repeating the same conversation to her son’s date at a holiday meal she prepared, getting lost jogging, wetting her pants because she forgets where the bathroom is, and making a video on her laptop instructing her future self, step by step, how how to commit suicide have an increasingly gnawing, foreboding effect as they pile up. The denouement, however, is restrained: the ending is as subtle and quiet as the rest of the film.

Moore is brilliant, taking us with her as both mind and body break down before our very eyes. She gives a wow performance that evokes sympathy and empathy. Still Alice is so clearly her Oscar stab, with a built-in standing ovation– after Alice lectures about memory at a conference and forgets what she was saying. Alec Baldwin as her husband plays an asshole, a role he has perfected. Like the story itself, though, he plays it with a subtle touch. Ironically or not, he’s totally forgettable here. So are her kids (Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, and Kristen Stewart, though the last has a few shining moments). A more apt title might have been All About Alice.

(AMC River East) A

http://sonyclassics.com/stillalice/