"Faster we'll divide all the sense into tiny parcels are you hoping it's tense, girl?" -Architecture in Helsinki

I’m a huge, no gigantic, fan of a character driven story. I work in a theater because I feel that by and large playwrights have to give you something to care about in their stories and the set, costumes and tone of the play are out of their control. But I also don’t like sacrificing an entire evening to the theater so I am an equally large fan of fast paced drama. Martin McDonagh is about as good as they come when it comes to fast-paced character driven stories and the movie “In Bruges”, which he penned, is a near hit for a what an art house flick should be. Near hit is the key though.

Martin McDonagh is a genius at making despicable characters that you can’t help like. His drama is gritty and faced paced and when it is done you feel assaulted in the best possible way. Sadly I don’t think it translates to screen in quite the same way, but it is fifty-one percent good movie and forty-nine percent Aw-shucks that was almost awesome.

The story is about two hit men who are sent to Bruges, Belgium after what we are led to believe is a botched job in England. Bruges is beautifully shot and framed in as a character in the story. The other-worldliness of it is really something else. But it is the attention to the character of Bruges that detracts from the performances of Brendan Gleeson as Ken, the elder statesman of the two; and Colin Farrell as the young buck Ray. Which is sad because this is probably Colin Farrell’s best work to date. The days of S.W.A.T., The Recruit and Phone Booth where his short sighted, often one dimensional, characters were pretty but none too deep, seem to be behind him and that is a great thing. Farrell did a wonderful job of capturing the arrogance and remorse of a young man who is in way over his head. The moments of intimacy between him and Gleeson were masterfully written, acted out, and shot. But it was the conclusions of these scenes that I found distracting.

There were some great shots of Bruges that should have been throwaway shots; but were, inexplicably, given equal weight. There was one particular moment of intimacy were Ray and Ken are talking about their reason for being in Bruges, Ken’s role in it and Ray’s attempt at solace and then we end with a view of a swan. Really? A swan?

And that was the problem I had with it. The throwaways had way too much importance in the movie. They broke up some remarkable dialog in an uncomfortable way, that didn’t seem intended McDonagh is renowned for making the audience squirm in the seat as his character play out their frustrations. There are some great exchanges between the character Katorian, Tupalski and Ariel in The Pillowman that left the audience itching for more. But Bruges lacked that, principally because we never got worked up to the fevered pitch that produces the responses.

I just never felt invested in Ken and Ray, and if anything I felt the saddest for Farrell’s love interest. Which is sort of sad because she occupies all of fifteen minutes of film.

Here is the worst part. This movie is still one of the five best movies I have seen in the trailing twelve months. Is it spectacular? Not really. It is solid from start to finish. Were my expectations a little high for the writer’s first screenplay? It would seem so.

Pesky expectations rear their head again.


"Faster we'll divide all the sense into tiny parcels are you hoping it's tense, girl?" -Architecture in Helsinki

"I'm sorry; Two words I always think..." -Feist

I suppose that before I get into the meat and potatoes of the post here I have to give a shout out to my sister Lauryn. She has goaded me into posting a review of a couple of movies that I have seen by telling me that she likes the way I write them. So blame her for the glut of writing that will be focused on the movies I have seen over the last couple of days.

I have at various points in the history of this blog posted up movie reviews. I have expressed my disdain for over the years for movies that butcher the literature of my youth, making needless edits and changes and thereby inexorably changing the story and robbing it of its magic. I have extolled the virtues of good old-fashioned mindless entertainment and I have given a review that I think I filed under the heading “Good But Who Gives a Shit.”

The common thread for all of these is expectation; because when you get right down to it expectation shapes the way I view movies. I can remember really not liking “Children of Men” because in my heart I wanted more from the movie than it was capable of delivering. By the same token, I look back fondly on movies like "Transformers" (and G-d am I saying this out loud?) "Spice Girls" because they met my very very low expectations for the film. But I would never say that "Children of Men" is worse than "Spice Girls".

Since we have a lot of ground to cover let’s get to it:

First up is Atonement; book by Ian McEwan, film directed by Joe Wright, Screenplay by Christopher Hampton.

I am a slow reader by nature. I am a very comprehensive reader as well. The end result is that I don’t spend a lot of time rereading books because I have a very good memory for them. I recently reread Susan Cooper’s, Dark Is Rising and was surprised at how much I still remembered about the story, even though it has been twenty years since I read it. Ian McEwan’s Atonement was a very difficult read for me. It took me all in about a month to get through. Not because the words were too big or difficult; but because every single page was wrought with emotional turmoil and passion. (Now admittedly I was also in the middle of Christmas Carol so I was working six, sometimes seven, days a week and found very little spare time to just sit and read.)

What McEwan does so beautifully is pack the pages full of description, which is so hard to do. I would love to call myself an earnest writer and one of the things that I have been told over and over again is describe, don’t tell. McEwan describes, in every sense of the word, the story so well.

The book itself is a little over 350 pages and divided into three parts. The first part is told from the perspective of an eleven or twelve year old girl, Briony; her sister, Cecilia, and the maid’s son, Robbie Turner. (Cecilia and Robbie are ten years older than Briony.)

The first part captured with amazing eloquence that moment in time when children became young adults. In Briony’s case, the innocence of her youth is chipped early in the day and by the end of the night completely shattered and this sets the whole story into motion. McEwan captures, through brilliant transitions in voice, the seeming gaps in maturity between the three principal characters. When we are told Briony’s story the word choices are often grander than absolutely necessary, but then that is how a twelve-year-old surrounded by adults might interpret language so it works; whereas, when Robbie’s story is being told it is kept tidy, the story really reflecting the son of the Charlady in the house. The first part culminates in a closing chapter that is infuriating and heartbreaking in equal parts. The palpable anger that I felt for Briony was astonishing to me – and I am well aware of my own book-reading flaws, which include, amongst other things, laughing out loud in public at the humorous parts.

The second part was the most difficult for me to get through. First because it the story of Robbie Turner’s evacuation from France during World War II. And second because it is just an incredibly descriptive section. I found myself having to go and reread whole sections because I was lost in the imagery that McEwan creates. It was the imagery that bogged me down and for good reason. In the story Robbie is marching to Dunkirk where the Royal Navy is evacuating over 300,000 people. What McEwan does is to make the reader very aware of the pace of this march. The whole process in the book takes maybe three days, and in the story it is almost a continuous 125 pages of incredibly lush-bordering on poetic-description of the French countryside, the horror and atrocity of war, and the fragile camaraderie that exists between soldiers.

There is a particularly gut wrenching scene where Robbie is trying to help a mother and her son avoid a German strafe and bomb mission on the retreating British forces. He is left with only a crater in the ground as the mother and son are stricken with fear and stop running.

It is the horror of war being captured through the eyes of someone whose life has gone so horribly wrong that makes you weep the hardest for the character. You are left with a real sense that Robbie is a hero, somebody who really is a good person. And not for personal gain, he does it because he, quite simply, doesn’t know any other way.

It is with part three that we get to the real essence of what this book is really about. As the name suggestions the book is about the reconciliation of grievous error. In this case a twelve-year-old lets her imagination run away with her and, in an effort be an adult before she is ready, ruin the lives of both Cecilia and Robbie. The third part joins Briony during her Parishioner year at a hospital where she is filling the role of Nightingale Nurse. This section is so hectic and the action jumps from one activity (or patient) to the next with such abandon that I was really struck by the speed that Briony must have been moving; speed that was by design and effort to outrun the shame that she felt now that she was a little older and understood what the implications of her actions are.

The thing that really sold me on the book is that it really is a heart-wrenching story. I can’t quite describe it, but anybody that has exes, or siblings or parents ought to read this so that as a minimum they understand the potential consequences their actions might have.

(I was trying to come up with a pithy way to segue into the comparison between book and movie, but alas five deleted paragraphs and some lame idioms have made me resort to a juggernaut approach.)

I made the mistake of seeing the movie first. I started reading the book, put it down, saw the movie, and then finished the book a full month and a week later. I think that the book would read faster with out the imagery and the criticism that I have of the movie.

The thing is though, that my criticism of the movie isn’t that large. First I pictured Cecilia to be more homely than Keira Knightley is capable of being, and second I thought that Romola Garai, who plays the older Briony, looked 25, and not 18. There you have it; criticism concluded.

Sometimes, when literature is being turned into a movie, I think moviemakers tend to want to change the story to make it fit the camera lens; examples of this include The DaVinci Code; The Dark is Rising, Golden Compass to name a few. Each of the examples I gave had different aspects of their story changed to make it different and change the story; in Da Vinci Code the book the church was not a bad guy, in the movie The Church was the antagonist acting through Opus Dei to thwart the Priory of Scion and Robert Langdon; Dark is Rising was an abomination and they changed the story so much that I think it is better to just pretend that it never happened; but I did make a post about it and you can find it here if you have the fortitude. Golden Compass, same thing read it here towards the bottom.

Joe Wright and Chris Hampton didn’t change a thing in "Atonement" until the epilogue that makes up the chapter titled London, 1999. And you know what? They nailed the important part and got the information to me in a way that changed very little of the story.

Here are the things that stood out to me in the movie, James McAvoy is going to be a super star; at least that is my hope. This is a guy who, in span of one movie, played three very different characters and he did it in a way that had me believing that he had gone through the life altering circumstances of the character in the book. I suppose that is what acting is all about, right? But why is it so remarkable that he did it so well and Tom Cruise keeps throwing up a regurgitated version of himself from Jerry Maguire every time he makes a movie. Maybe it was his youthful exuberance? Also I think it would astonishing to not see Saoirse Ronan or Romola Garai in the future.

One of the best transitions in the book for me was Briony’s growth from the creepy eleven-year-old who is treated like an adult but is very obviously a child, to the eighteen-year-old version that sees, with startling clarity, the errors of her past.

This transition is really well captured in the casting of Ronan and the aforementioned Garai. Ronan captures the creepy intensity of Briony at 13 as she wanders through the events, with her prejudices and fears really driving the way, until the act that cements the story. Garai has a striking innocent quality to her appearance and a great tone of voice, she is able to really exude apology with her eyes and I am still haunted by her first scene.

Quality of acting aside though, the director and cinematographer really are the stars of the show. Ian McEwan packs so many visuals into the novel and the filmmakers here really got to the heart of it and captured the book on film. The scene of two figures at the fountain, filming in the house, the march to Dunkirk, the hospital were all done with such great attention to the words that McEwan used to describe the environment—whether it is heat, or dryness, or the exhaustion that come from a long march—that it cemented this movie as a great translation.

The epitome of this for me is a scene that I have heard simply called “The Long Shot”. The scene in the book involves Robbie Turners march from somewhere in Northern France to the British Expeditionary Forces withdrawal point at Dunkirk. The text is probably twenty-five pages of marching, avoiding bombs, being in the army and survival. The Long Shot hit me like a can of film up aside the head.

The thing that makes it so remarkable is that you don’t realize what is happening until you get half way through it and then you realize, “HOLY CROW, THIS IS ALL THE SAME SHOT!” The whole shot takes about fifteen minutes, maybe a little more and it covers the walk up to Bray Dunes by Robbie Turner and Corporals Mace and Nettle.

I have read that they were under budget constraints, which is why they did it this way. Whatever the reason it works. I left the movie "Atonement" and spent the day wondering how the book was written because there was so little dialog for a large junk of the film. I remember thinking about the line that divides filmmakers and moviemakers and trying to place Atonement into a compartment that made sense: is it a film or movie, is it good or bad? I don’t think that I was able to place the magnitude of my feelings for the movie in their proper place until I had finished reading the book; now that I have, I am more appreciative of the masterwork of Joe Wright.

This is a movie that everybody who loves film should see, if for no other reason than to see the cinematography of it. It is far and away the most beautiful movie I saw last year.

"It’s just a bad movie, where there’s no crying" --Okkervil River

I just had the misfortune of watching The Seeker:The Dark is Rising.

As I have mentioned many times Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series is probably my favorite children's literature of all time. It blends together so many great aspects of being a child and that weird time when you turn 10 or 11 and how everything changes in your life.

The story is about a boy who is the last of the Old Ones, who are servants of the Light. They battle against the Dark. I am rereading the books now, because I wanted to be up on it when I went to the movie.

Now before I begin my review of this movie it is really important to point out that I am completely capable of separating a movie and a book. The Bourne series of movies and books are great examples of how you can take a book, deconstruct it, and then reconstruct it so that you have the essence of the book. The guys responsible for Bourne did a superb job of this. They managed to keep the angst and the fear of waking up and not knowing who you are and translate it into something that is a little more relevant. (The Bourne novels deal with the hunting of an assassin name Carlos the Jackal, who was active during the 1970's.)

The Seeker, managed to completely butcher my favorite book to the point where it was almost unwatchable.

First they took the primary characters and made them American, but living in Britain. BOO! Bad form guys. The charm of the story was that this was a normal boy who had been in the community for ages. His father was normal, a jeweler, and he came from a large family. The Seeker added a new element to the story and that was the strange folks in a strange land aspect of it.

Now I am going to lay out the things that aggravated me the most in no particular order.

1. Will Stanton. In the movie Will is 14, in the book he is 11. There is a difference; it may seem like a small difference but the difference in me when I was 10 and 14 was HUGE! At 14 I had a little more self confidence, a lot more knowledge about the world at large and I was befuddled by girls (which I will bring up later). At 10 I was... innocent I suppose. This story is about innocence. The fact that he is American versus British is something else entirely.

2. Merriman Lyon. I love Ian McShane. I think he is a wonderful actor. I am questioning the selection of his agent on this one. The portrayal of Merriman was abusive. In the book you get the sense that he is the most powerful person on the planet, wise beyond comprehension, and caring to the point of detriment. But he is not a push-over. He is the leader, in some capacity, of the Old Ones and to that end has to make tough decisions. One of the most heart-breaking scenes in the book involves the betrayal of his leige man. What the movie did was completely marginalize him. They made him one of four good fighters. But the movie clearly had Lady Greythorne as the figure head of the party, she was the stately, composed, wise one, who at one point has to make Merriman understand about the angst of young Will. It stripped the character of his nobility.

3. Maggie Barnes. In the book Maggie is not some mystery girl that Will idolizes. She is a villain from the start. I don't know if they needed a token pretty girl in the movie to appeal to people but it was pretty unnecessary.

4. The Rider. Bravo to Chris Ecclestone for bringing The Rider to life. What an incredible actor who pulls of creepy and disarming at the same time.

5. Family. This is a big one. In the book Will is the youngest of the family. He doesn't have a ridiculous foil of a twin brother. It is true that there was a brother named Tom, but the story line is that he was the first of the children and died after three days. Not some bull crap about a twin brother... blech... sorry I had to throw up in my mouth. The movie has this running subplot where Will's father is a physicist who was once writing a paper on the battles of Light and Dark. And then whoops, one of my babies got kidnapped and we never found him. It makes for an interesting plot device later in the movie; but also one that is contrived and poorly executed.

6. Americana. I don't know why Hollywood felt compelled to Americanize this movie but it killed it for me. When I read these books I was 13 or 14 and traveling cross country for my great-grandmothers 90th birthday. These books built a vision of the British Isles that I have carried in my head since then. Names like Cornwall and Wales still make me think of faeries, magic and mysticism. The book took a story about a young british boy and made him approachable to me. It helped globalize the world for me. With a young American Will, they have taken this movie into an us against them world. The villains and assistant heros are now both British and the noble American stands alone. I know I am reaching on this, but The Dark is Rising didn't need it.

7. Last I am curious and nervous to see how they come up with the incorporate the last of the books into movies, if they do that. They have changed the anchor of the story so drastically that I am afraid it will require more radical departure.

Anyway. The movie itself wasn't actually that bad, but my advice is that if you loved the stories, don't see the movie. If you go to the movie and see it and love it, maybe you will like the books I don't know? but I know that I find it impossible to separate the two and it is a giant black mark against an otherwise three star movie.

Final rating. Two stars. And they do nothing, they just sit there pissed off that they have to rate this movie.