ALL REVIEWS by Variety Staff (in alphabetical order by title)
2012 Toronto Film Festival -- Special Presentation
(Advance review from Variety)
Anna Karenina
(U.K.-U.S.)
Directed by Joe Wright
Screenplay, Tom Stoppard
Anna Karenina - Keira Knightley
Vronsky - Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Karenin - Jude Law
Levin - Domhnall Gleeson
Kitty - Alicia Vikander
Oblonsky - Matthew Macfadyen
Dolly - Kelly Macdonald
Serozha - Oskar McNamara
Countess Vronsky - Olivia Williams
Princess Betsy Tverskoy - Ruth Wilson
Countess Lydia Ivanova - Emily Watson
Eschewing the classical realism that's characterized most adaptations of Tolstoy's source novel, helmer Joe Wright makes the generally inspired decision to stylize his dark, expressionist take on "Anna Karenina."
Setting most of the action in a mocked-up theater emphasizes the performance aspects of the characters' behavior, a strategy enhanced by lead thesp Keira Knightley's willingness to let her neurotic Anna appear less sympathetic than in
previous incarnations.
Bowing Sept. 7 in Blighty after its Toronto preem, "Anna" is well-placed to gain admiring awards looks, especially in craft categories, but its covert anti-romanticism may limit appeal beyond specialty auds.
Despite the film's formal innovations, scripter Tom Stoppard's screenplay tracks fairly closely to the narrative roadmap laid out in Tolstoy's 1873 book.
As the story opens, Anna Karenina (Knightley) is married to stiff Imperial minister Karenin (Jude Law), with whom she has a son, 8-year-old Serozha (Oskar McNamara).
She's seduced by handsome, young cavalry officer Prince Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and the two fall insanely in love. But the affair becomes a scandal in St. Petersburg society, and Karenin is forced to throw down an ultimatum: Anna can have Vronsky and live with him in exile but never see her son again, or stay with her husband and child if she obeys the rules of discretion that tacitly govern adulterous liaisons in high society.
The main love-triangle plot is plaited with an account of gentleman farmer and Tolstoy-avatar Levin (Domhnall Gleeson), a strand given short shrift in most other film versions. A friend of Anna's brother Oblonsky (Matthew Macfadyen, offering amusing comic relief), Levin wishes to marry pretty Princess Kitty (Alicia Vikander, luminous), who refuses Levin at first, thinking herself in love with Vronsky.
But Vronsky abandons Kitty as soon as he meets Anna, a transference neatly symbolized by the partner-swapping in the key ballroom scene, intricately choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui to make the dancers look like graceful automatons.
Further down the line, Kitty and Levin discover a love that's built of stronger, more hard-wearing stuff.
Wright's decision to stage much of the aristocratic action in a stage-like space -- complete with illusionistic drop curtains, catwalks and flies crowded with costumed stagehands -- may confuse some auds. But it starts to make sense
when an opened door unexpectedly reveals an actual landscape in scenes concerning Levin, the character least swayed by social norms.
The courtly circles of St. Petersburg and Moscow, by contrast, are all about artifice, a perpetual theater that affords no real privacy, where everyone is always on view, like the doll houses that crop up frequently as motifs in the Oblonsky household. Even the trains, so crucial to the story, morph between obvious life-size mock-ups and toy-train sets, encrusted with fake powdery snow.
The title role offers one of the literary canon's juiciest parts for femme thesps wishing to show off displays of passion, pride, guilt, madness and the ability to cry on cue. In its more than 25 film incarnations, the character has been played by Greta Garbo (in 1927 and '35), Vivien Leigh (1948) and Soviet star Tatyana Samoilova (1967). Knightley has some mighty fancy court shoes to fill as she steps into the role.
Once again demonstrating that Wright knows how to get the best from Knightley (arguably her best work has been in "Pride and Prejudice" and "Atonement"), the actress's angular beauty, declamatory line delivery and air of self-doubt all work in her favor here.
Knightley's Anna is a silly little flirt, playing at being a romantic heroine, but incapable of thinking through the endgame. Not
unlike her turn as Sabina Spielrein in "A Dangerous Method," this is a femme more tortured than pleasured by her own uncontrollable desires.
Taylor-Johnson squares up well with Knightley, initially swaggering around town like a randy "It Boy," and then quietly terrified and out of his depth when her jealous rages blossom. But their mutual self-absorption makes them harder to root for as a couple, which diminishes the emotional wallop expected from the material.
Making Anna and Vronsky less likable creates more sympathy for Levin, and humanizes Law's frigid but still wounded Karenin, one of the thesp's best efforts yet at roughing up his old pretty-boy image.
Nevertheless, the pic feels unmistakably chilly, and not just because of all the snow. Technically, however, this "Anna" is glorious, from Seamus McGarvey's bejeweled lensing and Dario Marianelli's delicate score, to Sarah Greenwood's
exquisite Faberge-egg production design. Layered thick with detail, her sets go hand-in-calf-leather-glove with Jacqueline Durran's striking costumes, which blend period-accurate skirt silhouettes and haberdashery with 1950s bodice shapes and accents.
There's something particularly evocative in the way Anna's outfits favor asymmetric detailing, lending her easily unbalanced personality a touch of 2012 modernity.
Running time: 129 MIN.
Camera (color, Panavision widescreen), Seamus McGarvey; editor, Melanie Ann Oliver; music, Dario Marianelli; music supervisor, Maggie Rodford; production designer, Sarah Greenwood; supervising art director, Niall Moroney; set decorator, Katie Spencer; costume designer, Jacqueline Durran; sound (Dolby Digital/Datasat), John Casali; sound designer, Paul Carter; supervising sound editors, Craig Berkey, Becki Ponting; re-recording mixers, Berkey, Chris Burden; choreographer, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui; special effects supervisor, Mark Holt; visual effects supervisors, Richard Briscoe, Dominic
Parker, Tom Debenham; visual effects, One of Us; stunt coordinator, Lee Sheward; line producer, Alexander Dostal; assistant directors, Martin Harrison, Evgeniy Dostal; casting, Jina Jay, Dixie Chassay.
With: David Wilmot, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Eros Vlahos, Michelle Dockery, Raphael Personnaz, and Steve Evets
A Focus Features (in U.S.), Universal (in U.K.), release of Focus Features presentation of a Working Title production.
(International sales: Focus Features, Universal City.) Produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster. Executive producers, Liza Chasin. Co-producer, Alexandra Ferguson.
Reviewed By Leslie Felperin at Vue Leicester Square, London, Aug. 20, 2012. (In Toronto Film Festival -- Special Presentation.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(Advance review from Variety)
Anna Karenina
(U.K.-U.S.)
Directed by Joe Wright
Screenplay, Tom Stoppard
Anna Karenina - Keira Knightley
Vronsky - Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Karenin - Jude Law
Levin - Domhnall Gleeson
Kitty - Alicia Vikander
Oblonsky - Matthew Macfadyen
Dolly - Kelly Macdonald
Serozha - Oskar McNamara
Countess Vronsky - Olivia Williams
Princess Betsy Tverskoy - Ruth Wilson
Countess Lydia Ivanova - Emily Watson
Eschewing the classical realism that's characterized most adaptations of Tolstoy's source novel, helmer Joe Wright makes the generally inspired decision to stylize his dark, expressionist take on "Anna Karenina."
Setting most of the action in a mocked-up theater emphasizes the performance aspects of the characters' behavior, a strategy enhanced by lead thesp Keira Knightley's willingness to let her neurotic Anna appear less sympathetic than in
previous incarnations.
Bowing Sept. 7 in Blighty after its Toronto preem, "Anna" is well-placed to gain admiring awards looks, especially in craft categories, but its covert anti-romanticism may limit appeal beyond specialty auds.
Despite the film's formal innovations, scripter Tom Stoppard's screenplay tracks fairly closely to the narrative roadmap laid out in Tolstoy's 1873 book.
As the story opens, Anna Karenina (Knightley) is married to stiff Imperial minister Karenin (Jude Law), with whom she has a son, 8-year-old Serozha (Oskar McNamara).
She's seduced by handsome, young cavalry officer Prince Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and the two fall insanely in love. But the affair becomes a scandal in St. Petersburg society, and Karenin is forced to throw down an ultimatum: Anna can have Vronsky and live with him in exile but never see her son again, or stay with her husband and child if she obeys the rules of discretion that tacitly govern adulterous liaisons in high society.
The main love-triangle plot is plaited with an account of gentleman farmer and Tolstoy-avatar Levin (Domhnall Gleeson), a strand given short shrift in most other film versions. A friend of Anna's brother Oblonsky (Matthew Macfadyen, offering amusing comic relief), Levin wishes to marry pretty Princess Kitty (Alicia Vikander, luminous), who refuses Levin at first, thinking herself in love with Vronsky.
But Vronsky abandons Kitty as soon as he meets Anna, a transference neatly symbolized by the partner-swapping in the key ballroom scene, intricately choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui to make the dancers look like graceful automatons.
Further down the line, Kitty and Levin discover a love that's built of stronger, more hard-wearing stuff.
Wright's decision to stage much of the aristocratic action in a stage-like space -- complete with illusionistic drop curtains, catwalks and flies crowded with costumed stagehands -- may confuse some auds. But it starts to make sense
when an opened door unexpectedly reveals an actual landscape in scenes concerning Levin, the character least swayed by social norms.
The courtly circles of St. Petersburg and Moscow, by contrast, are all about artifice, a perpetual theater that affords no real privacy, where everyone is always on view, like the doll houses that crop up frequently as motifs in the Oblonsky household. Even the trains, so crucial to the story, morph between obvious life-size mock-ups and toy-train sets, encrusted with fake powdery snow.
The title role offers one of the literary canon's juiciest parts for femme thesps wishing to show off displays of passion, pride, guilt, madness and the ability to cry on cue. In its more than 25 film incarnations, the character has been played by Greta Garbo (in 1927 and '35), Vivien Leigh (1948) and Soviet star Tatyana Samoilova (1967). Knightley has some mighty fancy court shoes to fill as she steps into the role.
Once again demonstrating that Wright knows how to get the best from Knightley (arguably her best work has been in "Pride and Prejudice" and "Atonement"), the actress's angular beauty, declamatory line delivery and air of self-doubt all work in her favor here.
Knightley's Anna is a silly little flirt, playing at being a romantic heroine, but incapable of thinking through the endgame. Not
unlike her turn as Sabina Spielrein in "A Dangerous Method," this is a femme more tortured than pleasured by her own uncontrollable desires.
Taylor-Johnson squares up well with Knightley, initially swaggering around town like a randy "It Boy," and then quietly terrified and out of his depth when her jealous rages blossom. But their mutual self-absorption makes them harder to root for as a couple, which diminishes the emotional wallop expected from the material.
Making Anna and Vronsky less likable creates more sympathy for Levin, and humanizes Law's frigid but still wounded Karenin, one of the thesp's best efforts yet at roughing up his old pretty-boy image.
Nevertheless, the pic feels unmistakably chilly, and not just because of all the snow. Technically, however, this "Anna" is glorious, from Seamus McGarvey's bejeweled lensing and Dario Marianelli's delicate score, to Sarah Greenwood's
exquisite Faberge-egg production design. Layered thick with detail, her sets go hand-in-calf-leather-glove with Jacqueline Durran's striking costumes, which blend period-accurate skirt silhouettes and haberdashery with 1950s bodice shapes and accents.
There's something particularly evocative in the way Anna's outfits favor asymmetric detailing, lending her easily unbalanced personality a touch of 2012 modernity.
Running time: 129 MIN.
Camera (color, Panavision widescreen), Seamus McGarvey; editor, Melanie Ann Oliver; music, Dario Marianelli; music supervisor, Maggie Rodford; production designer, Sarah Greenwood; supervising art director, Niall Moroney; set decorator, Katie Spencer; costume designer, Jacqueline Durran; sound (Dolby Digital/Datasat), John Casali; sound designer, Paul Carter; supervising sound editors, Craig Berkey, Becki Ponting; re-recording mixers, Berkey, Chris Burden; choreographer, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui; special effects supervisor, Mark Holt; visual effects supervisors, Richard Briscoe, Dominic
Parker, Tom Debenham; visual effects, One of Us; stunt coordinator, Lee Sheward; line producer, Alexander Dostal; assistant directors, Martin Harrison, Evgeniy Dostal; casting, Jina Jay, Dixie Chassay.
With: David Wilmot, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Eros Vlahos, Michelle Dockery, Raphael Personnaz, and Steve Evets
A Focus Features (in U.S.), Universal (in U.K.), release of Focus Features presentation of a Working Title production.
(International sales: Focus Features, Universal City.) Produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster. Executive producers, Liza Chasin. Co-producer, Alexandra Ferguson.
Reviewed By Leslie Felperin at Vue Leicester Square, London, Aug. 20, 2012. (In Toronto Film Festival -- Special Presentation.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2012 Toronto Film Festival - Gala Presentation
ARGO
Directed by Ben Affleck (also stars)
Screenplay, Chris Terrio
Source: based on a selection from "The Master of Disguise" by Antonio J. Mendez and the Wired Magazine article "The Great Escape" by Joshuah Bearman
Tony Mendez - Ben Affleck
Jack O'Donnell - Bryan Cranston
Lester Siegel - Alan Arkin
John Chambers - John Goodman
Ken Taylor - Victor Garber
Bob Anders - Tate Donovan
Cora Lijek - Clea DuVall
These days, when most Hollywood types want to get political, they write checks or talk to empty chairs. But back in 1980, makeup artist John Chambers and a special-effects colleague went above and beyond, assisting the CIA to invent a phony film production as a front for a daring hostage rescue in Iran.
Declassified after 18 years, "Argo" is the gripping story of how Hollywood helped save the day. White-knuckle tense and less self-congratulatory than it sounds, Ben Affleck's unexpectedly comedic third feature has the vital elements to delight adult auds, judging by the enthusiastic response to this Oct. 12 release's Telluride sneak.
Intercutting faux newsreel footage with an energetic widescreen restaging of the Nov. 4, 1979, storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by angry militants, "Argo" gets the pulse racing from the start, conveying the panic foreign service workers felt at the scene. (A brief historical prologue reminds viewers of the CIA-backed coup that put the Shah in power in Iran, and how the Iranians felt justified in their actions after the U.S. offered amnesty to the then-deposed Shah.)
While most of the embassy staff scrambled to destroy files, six Americans snuck out a side door and found shelter in the Canadian embassy, where they remained trapped for months. Halfway across the world, a phone rings and a bearded but otherwise too-relaxed-looking Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) stirs into action. When the U.S. government needs an extractor, Mendez is the man they call, and though he's never left anyone behind, the obstacles have never been greater than they are in extracting six Americans from revolutionary Iran.
Mendez' scheme -- the agency's "best bad idea" -- involves posing as a film producer scouting a location in Iran. He intends to set up a production office there, and even buys an ad in Variety to establish legitimacy. Then, he flies in alone, aiming to return with the six refugees (technically not hostages, since they weren't captured like their compatriots, trapped for 444 days in the U.S. Embassy) role-playing as his film crew.
It's a kooky idea that sounds all the more hilarious every time a new character repeats it, as Chambers (John Goodman) and veteran producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) incredulously do in Hollywood, each surrounded by the kitsch of their trade. Historically speaking, Chambers was the makeup pro who applied Spock's ears on "Star Trek," while Siegel is a fictional character based on Chambers' actual accomplice, effects guru Bob Sidell, who worked on the movie "E.T."
Still, Arkin's caricature makes for good comedy, as the ex-player takes the CIA meeting before stepping out to collect another lifetime achievement award to add to his already overcrowded mantel.
Terrio delivers a script that crackles with Paddy Chayefsky-like acerbity in parts, and includes plenty of punchy patter. Though Affleck's charm serves the film's lighter aspects as a snarky con-man yarn, the star may be the one dubious
casting choice in the central drama's all-around stellar ensemble. Despite the peppering of gray in his hair and beard, Affleck ultimately comes across softer in-character than the script demands: When Mendez quips that extraction operations "are like abortions -- you don't want to need one, but when you do, you don't want to do it yourself" to a room full of State Dept. officials, it's a line that takes brass balls to deliver, and the actor lacks the cowboy conviction to sell it.
Much of "Argo" -- named for the fake sci-fi production at its core -- comes from well-researched fact, meticulously translated into richly textured retro-looking sets by production designer Sharon Seymour, captured with nostalgic '80s-styled cinematography by d.p. Rodrigo Prieto -- the production team's detailed work underscored by an end-credits slide show (and an interview with former President Jimmy Carter conducted by Affleck) that depicts characters and scenes alongside their real-life counterparts.
Still, the script takes its share of liberties to amplify either the tension or the satire, as when Siegel buys the rights to "Argo" (which Chambers already owned) from a rival producer.
For the breath-stopping final act, the film rewrites history so that Iranian intelligence figures out Mendez's plan at a particularly awkward moment (in fact, the operation had a far quieter denouement). But the change not only makes
for a thrilling finale (one that Telluride auds gave a spontaneous ovation), it corrects the uncomfortably xenophobic way every Iranian is shown in the movie, and suggests they were at least as smart as Mendez.
Ultimately, the thrill of "Argo" is in watching how the illusion-making of movies found such an unlikely application on the world political stage, where the stakes were literally life and death. Not only did Mendez have to manufacture the artifice of a nonexistent film, but the American embassy workers were required to become actors overnight, pretending to be film professionals lest they be found out and executed.
MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 120 MIN. (English, Farsi dialogue)
Camera (Deluxe color), Rodrigo Prieto; editor, William Goldenberg; music, Alexandre Desplat; production designer, Sharon Seymour; art director, Peter Borck; set decorator, Jan Pascale; costume designer, Jacqueline West; sound (Dolby Digital/Datasat/SDDS), Diana Ulzheimer; sound designers, Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van Der Ryn; supervising sound editor, Aadahl; re-recording mixers, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff; stunt coordinator, JJ Perry; special effects supervisor, R. Bruce Steinheimer; additional visual effects supervisor, Greg McMurry; visual effects, Method Studios; assistant director, David Webb; second unit director, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon; second unit camera, Robby Baumgartner; casting, Lora Kennedy.
MORE cast:
Joe Stafford - Scoot McNairy
Lee Schatz - Rory Cochrane Mark
Lijek - Christopher Denham
With: Chris Messina and Philip Baker Hall
A Warner Bros. release and presentation in association with GK Films of a Smokehouse Pictures production. Produced by Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney. Executive producers, David Klawans, Nina Wolarsky, Chris Brigham, Chay Carter, Graham King, Tim Headington. Co-producer, Amy Herman.
Reviewed By Peter Debruge at Telluride Film Festival, Aug. 31, 2012. (Also in Toronto Film Festival – Gala Presentation.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2012 Toronto Film Festival -- Special Presentation
(Advance review from Variety)
The Impossible
(Spain-U.S.)
Directed by J. A. Bayona
Screenplay, Sergio G. Sanchez; story, Maria Belon
Maria - Naomi Watts
Henry - Ewan McGregor
Lucas - Tom Holland
The most harrowing disaster movie in many a moon, "The Impossible" marries a tremendous feat of physical filmmaking
to an emotional true story of family survival. Cannily fusing spectacle and uplift in a distinctly Spielbergian manner, talented Spanish helmer J. A. Bayona captures the devastation wrought by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami with a raw, sickening intensity, demonstrating a surefooted but rather less elemental touch in the calculated-to-resonate aftermath.
Wrenchingly acted, deftly manipulated and terrifyingly well made, this not-for-the-squeamish Summit release stands to be a significant year-end draw.
The title refers to the extraordinary circumstances by which the Belon family, vacationing in Thailand in December 2004, managed to weather the deadliest catastrophe in the country's history. Sergio G. Sanchez's screenplay (with a story credited to surviving wife and mother Maria Belon) dramatizes the events with a lean, pared-down simplicity. Not a frame is wasted, as British-born businessman Henry Bennett (Ewan McGregor) and his doctor wife, Maria (Naomi Watts), arrive at a Thai beach resort with their three boys on Christmas Eve, arguing, laughing and playing like any loving family right when
disaster strikes.
In a staggeringly vivid 10-minute reconstruction, 98-foot-high tidal waves sweep through Thailand's coastal towns, flinging people, cars and debris around like dolls. Almost immediately, the enormous walls of water separate Maria and oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) from Henry and the two younger boys, Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast).
Longer and more concentrated in impact than the tsunami prologue of Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter," this gale-force sequence was achieved using Thailand-based sets, a Spain-based liquid tank, several thousand gallons of water, and seamlessly integrated f/x. While the scenes of sweeping, large-scale destruction are stunning to behold, the most nightmarish sights and sounds come via Maria's perspective as she's repeatedly dragged beneath the surface; few films have so palpably evoked the sensation of drowning, or of being pounded relentlessly by muddy waves and debris.
Steadying themselves by clinging to a felled tree, Lucas and a badly injured Maria eventually find their way to dry land. Detailing every groan, scrape and shudder with almost unbearable deliberation, the film documents their agonizingly slow journey to a crowded hospital; meanwhile, Henry searches for them amid the wreckage of the resort, unsure of how best to take care of Thomas and Simon in the meantime.
Collaborating again after their impressive 2007 debut feature, "The Orphanage," Bayona and Sanchez get many things right here, starting with their decision to eschew a more panoramic view of the disaster to follow one family's journey from start to finish.
The stripped-down approach suits an intimate story of individuals pushed to their limits -- to a place where survival and reunion become their sole priorities. TV news footage is kept to a refreshing minimum; any context about the scope of the tragedy is gleaned primarily from the Bennetts' sympathetic conversations with their fellow refugees.
Lessons about the nobility of sacrifice and the satisfaction of helping others in times of crisis emerge stirringly and organically from the characters' experiences, along with spontaneous moments of life-affirming humor.
Watts has few equals at conveying physical and emotional extremis, something she again demonstrates in a mostly bedridden role, and McGregor, in one of his better recent performances, manages to turn a simple phone call home into a
small aria of heartbreak. Holland, in his live-action bigscreen debut, is wonderful as a kind, somewhat short-tempered kid who still has plenty to learn, setting the tone for similarly heartrending turns by young Joslin and Pendergast.
In many respects, particularly the way it gives children an enormous role to play on a canvas of epic calamity, this is prototypical Spielberg fare, and as such it's not immune to a certain emotional manipulation. As the virtually unrelieved tension and anxiety of the first half give way to less grueling scenes of will-they-find-each-other suspense, signaled by increasingly operatic surges in Fernando Velazquez's score, "The Impossible" contrives a conclusion that, however true to life it may be, can't help but feel somewhat artificially imposed in relation to what has preceded it.
Through it all, Bayona's handling of the overarching logistics -- marshaling hundreds of extras (many of them real-life tsunami survivors) in scenes of such overwhelming verisimilitude that you can practically smell the blood, sweat and squalor -- is nothing short of masterly.
In a tech package without a weak link, from the unerring camera placement to the forceful editing, the most notable element may be the exceptionally detailed soundscape, which announces itself with a near-deafening drone early on and proves invaluable in pounding home the film's visceral impact.
MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 103 MIN. (English, Thai dialogue)
Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen), Oscar Faura; editors, Elena Ruiz, Bernat Vilapana; music, Fernando Velazquez; production designer, Eugenio Caballero; art directors, Didac Bono, Jaime Anduiza; set designer, Gabriel Liste; set decorator, Pilar Revuelta; costume designers, Sparka Lee Hall, Anna Bingemann, Maria Reyes; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS), Peter
Glossop; sound designer/supervising sound editor, Oriol Tarrago; re-recording mixer, Marc Orts; special effects supervisor, Pau Costa; special effects, Efe-X-Efectos Especiales; visual effects supervisor, Felix Berges; visual effects, El Ranchito, Fassman; special makeup effects, David Marti, Montse Ribe; stunt coordinator, Guiomar Alonso; assistant director, Daniela Forn; second unit director, Eugenio Mira; casting, Shaheen Baig.
With: Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast, Marta Etura, Sonke Mohring, and Geraldine Chaplin.
A Summit Entertainment release, presented with Mediaset Espana, of an Apaches Entertainment and Telecinco Cinema production, in association with La Trini, Canal Plus, Icaa, Ivac and Generalitat Valenciana. Produced by Belen Atienza, Alvaro Augustin, Enrique Lopez-Lavigne, Ghislan Barrois. Executive producers, Sandra Hermida, Javier Ugarte.
Reviewed By Justin Chang at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 9, 2012.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(Advance review from Variety)
The Impossible
(Spain-U.S.)
Directed by J. A. Bayona
Screenplay, Sergio G. Sanchez; story, Maria Belon
Maria - Naomi Watts
Henry - Ewan McGregor
Lucas - Tom Holland
The most harrowing disaster movie in many a moon, "The Impossible" marries a tremendous feat of physical filmmaking
to an emotional true story of family survival. Cannily fusing spectacle and uplift in a distinctly Spielbergian manner, talented Spanish helmer J. A. Bayona captures the devastation wrought by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami with a raw, sickening intensity, demonstrating a surefooted but rather less elemental touch in the calculated-to-resonate aftermath.
Wrenchingly acted, deftly manipulated and terrifyingly well made, this not-for-the-squeamish Summit release stands to be a significant year-end draw.
The title refers to the extraordinary circumstances by which the Belon family, vacationing in Thailand in December 2004, managed to weather the deadliest catastrophe in the country's history. Sergio G. Sanchez's screenplay (with a story credited to surviving wife and mother Maria Belon) dramatizes the events with a lean, pared-down simplicity. Not a frame is wasted, as British-born businessman Henry Bennett (Ewan McGregor) and his doctor wife, Maria (Naomi Watts), arrive at a Thai beach resort with their three boys on Christmas Eve, arguing, laughing and playing like any loving family right when
disaster strikes.
In a staggeringly vivid 10-minute reconstruction, 98-foot-high tidal waves sweep through Thailand's coastal towns, flinging people, cars and debris around like dolls. Almost immediately, the enormous walls of water separate Maria and oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) from Henry and the two younger boys, Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast).
Longer and more concentrated in impact than the tsunami prologue of Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter," this gale-force sequence was achieved using Thailand-based sets, a Spain-based liquid tank, several thousand gallons of water, and seamlessly integrated f/x. While the scenes of sweeping, large-scale destruction are stunning to behold, the most nightmarish sights and sounds come via Maria's perspective as she's repeatedly dragged beneath the surface; few films have so palpably evoked the sensation of drowning, or of being pounded relentlessly by muddy waves and debris.
Steadying themselves by clinging to a felled tree, Lucas and a badly injured Maria eventually find their way to dry land. Detailing every groan, scrape and shudder with almost unbearable deliberation, the film documents their agonizingly slow journey to a crowded hospital; meanwhile, Henry searches for them amid the wreckage of the resort, unsure of how best to take care of Thomas and Simon in the meantime.
Collaborating again after their impressive 2007 debut feature, "The Orphanage," Bayona and Sanchez get many things right here, starting with their decision to eschew a more panoramic view of the disaster to follow one family's journey from start to finish.
The stripped-down approach suits an intimate story of individuals pushed to their limits -- to a place where survival and reunion become their sole priorities. TV news footage is kept to a refreshing minimum; any context about the scope of the tragedy is gleaned primarily from the Bennetts' sympathetic conversations with their fellow refugees.
Lessons about the nobility of sacrifice and the satisfaction of helping others in times of crisis emerge stirringly and organically from the characters' experiences, along with spontaneous moments of life-affirming humor.
Watts has few equals at conveying physical and emotional extremis, something she again demonstrates in a mostly bedridden role, and McGregor, in one of his better recent performances, manages to turn a simple phone call home into a
small aria of heartbreak. Holland, in his live-action bigscreen debut, is wonderful as a kind, somewhat short-tempered kid who still has plenty to learn, setting the tone for similarly heartrending turns by young Joslin and Pendergast.
In many respects, particularly the way it gives children an enormous role to play on a canvas of epic calamity, this is prototypical Spielberg fare, and as such it's not immune to a certain emotional manipulation. As the virtually unrelieved tension and anxiety of the first half give way to less grueling scenes of will-they-find-each-other suspense, signaled by increasingly operatic surges in Fernando Velazquez's score, "The Impossible" contrives a conclusion that, however true to life it may be, can't help but feel somewhat artificially imposed in relation to what has preceded it.
Through it all, Bayona's handling of the overarching logistics -- marshaling hundreds of extras (many of them real-life tsunami survivors) in scenes of such overwhelming verisimilitude that you can practically smell the blood, sweat and squalor -- is nothing short of masterly.
In a tech package without a weak link, from the unerring camera placement to the forceful editing, the most notable element may be the exceptionally detailed soundscape, which announces itself with a near-deafening drone early on and proves invaluable in pounding home the film's visceral impact.
MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 103 MIN. (English, Thai dialogue)
Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen), Oscar Faura; editors, Elena Ruiz, Bernat Vilapana; music, Fernando Velazquez; production designer, Eugenio Caballero; art directors, Didac Bono, Jaime Anduiza; set designer, Gabriel Liste; set decorator, Pilar Revuelta; costume designers, Sparka Lee Hall, Anna Bingemann, Maria Reyes; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS), Peter
Glossop; sound designer/supervising sound editor, Oriol Tarrago; re-recording mixer, Marc Orts; special effects supervisor, Pau Costa; special effects, Efe-X-Efectos Especiales; visual effects supervisor, Felix Berges; visual effects, El Ranchito, Fassman; special makeup effects, David Marti, Montse Ribe; stunt coordinator, Guiomar Alonso; assistant director, Daniela Forn; second unit director, Eugenio Mira; casting, Shaheen Baig.
With: Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast, Marta Etura, Sonke Mohring, and Geraldine Chaplin.
A Summit Entertainment release, presented with Mediaset Espana, of an Apaches Entertainment and Telecinco Cinema production, in association with La Trini, Canal Plus, Icaa, Ivac and Generalitat Valenciana. Produced by Belen Atienza, Alvaro Augustin, Enrique Lopez-Lavigne, Ghislan Barrois. Executive producers, Sandra Hermida, Javier Ugarte.
Reviewed By Justin Chang at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 9, 2012.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lincoln
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay, Tony Kushner
Source: based in part on the book "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Abraham Lincoln - Daniel Day-Lewis
Mary Todd Lincoln - Sally Field
Secretary of State William Seward - David Strathairn
Robert Todd Lincoln - Joseph Gordon-Levitt
WN Bilbo - James Spader
Francis Preston Blair - Hal Holbrook
Thaddeus Stevens - Tommy Lee Jones
Fernando Wood - Lee Pace
George Zeaman - Michael Stuhlbarg
James Ashley - David Costabile
Alexander Stephens - Jackie Earle Haley
Lydia Smith - S. Epatha Merkerson
Ulysses S. Grant - Jared Harris
Abraham Lincoln may not technically be the subject of Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," but Daniel Day-Lewis is inarguably its star, delivering an unimpeachable performance as the United States' 16th president in a shrewd, stately and somewhat stuffy drama focused on a narrow yet defining chapter of Lincoln's life: abolishing slavery via the passage of a Constitutional
amendment.
Though historians will surely find room to quibble, every choice Day-Lewis makes lends dignity and gravitas to America's most revered figure, resulting in an event movie whose commercial and critical fate rides on the reputations of not just Lincoln, but the esteemed creative team as well.
Too seldom does American cinema deal with the country's most shameful policy: the paradox by which a nation founded on equality might allow the subjugation and servitude of one race to persist for nearly a century.
Spielberg, however, has faced the issue head-on, not just once ("The Color Purple") or twice ("Amistad"), but three times, confronting it most directly -- at the very core of the policy -- in "Lincoln." The title functions as something of a misnomer,
considering that the president here serves as the instrument to emancipation and not the actual focus of the film, as if "Amistad" had been released as "Quincy Adams."
Liberally adapted from Doris Kearns Goodwin's 2005 book "Team of Rivals," Tony Kushner's script dramatizes the behind-the-scenes story of the wheeling and dealing required to pass the 13th Amendment -- undoubtedly the legacy for which Lincoln hoped to be remembered, not realizing how compelling audiences would find every aspect of his private life 144 years later.
The theater-trained scribe, who previously co-wrote "Munich" for the director, defies what admirers expect of a Spielberg-made Lincoln biopic. In place of vicarious emotion and tour de force filmmaking, "Lincoln" offers a largely static intellectual reappraisal of the great orator, limiting not only the scenery chewing but also the scenery itself in what amounts to Spielberg's most play-like production yet; it's a style that will keep many viewers at arm's length.
Emphasizing talk over action, Kushner concentrates on Lincoln's strategy of forcing an unpopular and recently defeated policy through a lame-duck House of Representatives. Enlisting three buffoonish vote-buyers (James Spader, John
Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson), the executive doesn't hesitate to exploit his immense powers, which extend to offering cushy government jobs, pardons and other presidential privileges to those willing to embrace his position.
This is politics as it is really played, yet few writers have found a way to make it as compelling as Kushner does here. That success owes in part to the extensive character-actor ensemble Spielberg and casting director Avy Kaufman have enlisted, repaying them with dramatic roles for not only Lincoln's entire cabinet (most prominently David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward), but more than a dozen key allies and opponents of the 13th Amendment, including Lee Pace as a showboating Democrat, Michael Stuhlbarg as a conscience-conflicted swing voter and David Costabile as the doubting Thomas among Lincoln's closest supporters.
Despite occasional digressions into spectacular but artificial-looking Civil War battlefields, the action is rowdiest on the floor of Congress, where Republican representative Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) trades scathing barbs with such ideological rivals as George Pendleton (Peter McRobbie, who more closely resembles frown-creased portraits of the real-life Stevens than Jones does).
Though the film inevitably deals with Lincoln's assassination, notably played offscreen, the climax comes during the Congressional vote itself, in which Spielberg allows the names of history's heroes to ring out the way he previously did those saved on Schindler's list. Even more effective is the way Kushner integrates the full text of the Gettysburg Address and the 13th Amendment into the body of the film.
Still, since audiences inevitably prefer personal intrigue to the inner workings of politics, Kushner laces "Lincoln" with details about first lady "Molly" (Sally Field), as Abe called his wife, Mary, and sons Tad (Gulliver McGrath) and Robert (Joseph Gordon Levitt), who withdraws from Harvard in order to enlist in the Union army, despite his father's adamant demands to the contrary.
Still, these human-interest scenes seem to get in the way of the story at hand, offering valuable, intimate glimpses of the Lincolns as seldom seen before, yet inorganic to the abolition of slavery -- save one powerful scene, when Mary, having already lost one son and loathe to watch Robert perish in the Civil War, publicly threatens her husband, "If you fail to acquire the necessary votes, woe unto you, you will have to answer to me."
Spielberg and Kushner hold this truth to be self-evident: that behind every powerful man is a woman pushing him toward greatness. Informed largely by Goodwin's research, "Lincoln" presents an image of the president very different from the melancholy figure so often seen before.
Such crushing grief falls instead to Field, whose long-suffering Mary endured debilitating migraines and deep depression after the death of their son Willie, but also scandalously overspent in her efforts to outfit the White House -- and herself -- to a level she felt befitting the first family.
Curiously, Mary was a decade Abraham's junior, though Field is actually a decade older than Day-Lewis, creating an odd, almost maternal dynamic between the two actors.
Meanwhile, Day-Lewis plays Lincoln as a physically awkward but not unhandsome figure, gentle with his children, uncomfortable with ceremony (his disdain of calfskin gloves becomes a running joke), and firm when needed with colleagues
who could not always see the wisdom in the man some considered "the capitulating compromiser."
This Lincoln is a lover of theater and avid raconteur who easily quotes from Shakespeare and scripture, a man who problem-solves via storytelling -- an impression that naturally flatters those in Spielberg and Kushner's profession.
Perhaps that explains the staginess of "Lincoln's" telling, right down to the creak of the boards under the great orator's feet and d.p. Janusz Kaminski's conservative framing, which recalls either classic prosceniums or heavily shadowed Renaissance paintings. Though incongruous with the psychological realism that Kushner, through elevated dialogue, aims to achieve, this iconic style suits such a beloved persona.
And yet, Lincoln's life takes a backseat to the ideological battle between two opposing ideas -- an end to slavery, or an end to war. The result looks as much like a Natural History Museum diorama as it sounds: a respectful but waxy re-creation that feels somehow awe-inspiring yet chillingly lifeless to behold, the great exception being Jones' alternately blistering and sage turn as Stevens.
Production values are as elegant as one would expect from Spielberg, grittier but no less impressionistic than last year's "War Horse." John Williams' score, which seemingly incorporates hymns, marches and other period music, offers vital
but unobtrusive support.
MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 149 MIN.
Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen), Janusz Kaminski; editor, Michael Kahn; music, John Williams; production designer, Rick Carter; art directors, Curt Beech, David Crank, Leslie McDonald; set decorator, Jim Erickson; costume designer, Joanna Johnston; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/Datasat), Ron Judkins; sound designer, Ben Burtt; supervising sound editor, Richard Hymns; re-recording mixers, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom; special effects coordinator, Steve Cremin; visual effects supervisors, Ben Morris, Garan Miljkovich; visual effects, Framestore, the Garage VFX; stunt coordinator, Garrett Warren;
assistant director, Adam Somner; casting, Avy Kaufman.
With: John Hawkes, Walton Goggins, Bruce McGill, David Oyelowo, Julie White, Adam Driver, Gulliver McGrath, Tim Blake Nelson, Gregory Itzin, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong, Christopher Boyer, and John Hutton
Reviewed By Peter Debruge at Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, Calif., Oct. 25, 2012. (In Toronto Film Festival)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++