'The Father' is an Astonishing Feat of Storytelling
#123: "The Father," "Zach Snyder's Justice League," "Love and Basketball," "Uncut Gems"
Edition 123:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
Click HERE to join our Oscars pool, which you can play free or join the $2 winner-take-all prize pool. Ballots are open from now until April 25th. Can you predict more of the 23 categories correct than me? (Spoiler alert: no)
In this week’s newsletter: I went to a movie theater for the first time in over a year! Wow. The Father was the last of this year’s Best Picture nominees I hadn’t seen, and even though it might not be a contender, it’s fantastic. Not so fantastic was the four hours I spent (read: wasted) on Zach Snyder’s cut of Justice League. But suggestions for your weekend include an NCAA Tournament-themed romantic comedy and a pair of adrenaline-pumping thrillers. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” a documentary has arrived to replace a book you really should read. What’s new.
The Father
(Theaters !!)
Of all the things I missed about not going to a movie theater for over a year — the smell of popcorn, the sudden hush when the lights go down, the giant textured projection screen — I never would’ve guessed that my favorite part of the return would come during the trailers before the movie even began.
As I settled into my seat, it was clear health was never going to be an issue during a Tuesday night showing of this little known independent film, which couldn’t even achieve the theater’s maximum capacity of 14 occupants, and the few who had come were masked and positioned much further apart than, say, shoppers at the grocery store.
Still, even from far away and through the mask, after the climactic line for the trailer of the Bob Odenkirk action thriller Nobody, I heard one moviegoer turn to his wife and whisper, “Oh, honey, we’re definitely going to see that.”
I smiled my biggest smile in months. It’s a comment I’ve heard or made a thousand times in a thousand theaters, but after a year of disconnection from the larger community of moviegoers, I was overwhelmed by its welcome embrace.
That communal experience took on much more significance about an hour and a half later, when sniffles could be heard behind me as everyone in that audience’s heart was laid bare by a heart-wrenching moment in Florian Zeller’s The Father, an adaptation of her own Tony-nominated stage play about the relationship between an aging man with dementia and his caregiving daughter.
It’s a relationship seen in many movies, but never so effectively told from the point of view of the older person. Too often in movies, and quite frankly in life as well, that character is the object of gaze from younger eyes who can only notice the ways in which behavior is not normal. Looking out from the eyes of the afflicted, dementia is not a handicap but rather a perspective, one that he did nothing to cause and can do nothing to solve.
That switch creates a story that is both thematically and formally inventive. It’s a difficult thing to explain without venturing into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that Christopher Nolan is probably seething with jealousy at Zeller’s ability to construct a nonlinear, surrealist story that still conveys a narrative that is both cohesive and coherent. Narrative threads twist and wind and jumble like the synapses in an aging mind, yet still somehow progress toward a conclusion.
Stage adaptations have dominated this awards season, mostly because of the opportunity they afford actors to flex their muscles. The role of the father in the original production netted Frank Langella a Tony Award, and likely would’ve scored Oscar gold for Anthony Hopkins here had Chadwick Boseman had not tragically passed (after acting in a stage adaptation himself).
Hopkins, now in his early 80s, turns in some of the best work of his long and illustrious career. He plays vulnerable and venerable with equal power, creating a character we empathize with deeply without devolving into a cartoonish caricature of a dementia patient, which would’ve been easy to do. Alongside him and brilliant, as always, is recent Oscar winner Olivia Coleman, and a whole handful of recognizable faces.
As meaty as the acting parts might be, the rest of those entries felt confined by their roots. They very much felt like plays that had been filmed. As such, they were all shut out from the Best Picture category (though that ascribes a level of merit to the proceedings I do not personally believe in). The Father was the rare stage adaptation that I walked away from wondering how in the world they could do that on stage. Particular framing and camera tricks aide in the coherence between differing story threads, and despite limited physical settings the movie never feels confined to its four walls.
All of that technical mastery heightens a story that packs an emotional punch. I warned my own parents, who have each dealt with caregiving duties for an aging parent, that the movie might be entirely too much to handle. Offering up the point of view of the sufferer might produce a sort of empathy PTSD.
But finding a movie that opens one’s heart up in empathy towards others is the rarest of treasures. And to have that experience in a communal setting? For the first time in over a year? Whew, I’ve never been so happy to cry in front of strangers.
Maybe, just maybe, the world is finally healing.
Something New
Zach Snyder’s Justice League (HBO Max): The most notable thing about a movie should never be its runtime, but even if four hours is a preposterous amount of time to ask of your audience, I reject all criticisms that flat out dismiss a movie for its length. (Many of these same people were celebrating Martin Scorcese’s three-and-a-half hour epic The Irishman.) Trust me, this movie has MANY other things you can criticize, from its joyless tone to its numerous incoherent CGI punch fests to the PhD-level knowledge of D.C. comic books required in order to make sense of what’s happening. The online activists literally tweeted this movie into existence, with the help of a hundred million additional dollars from Warner Brothers, and though I’d read and heard this extended version is far more competent than the original…there’s that old saying about the value of polishing a terd that I think applies here.
Something Old
Love and Basketball (2000, Hulu): In honor of USC’s run to the Sweet 16 of this year’s NCAA Tournament (I have them on to the Elite Eight in my bracket!), it seemed like a perfect time to check out this romantic comedy about two neighbors who both end up receiving scholarships to USC, and have to balance their romance with their individual hoop dreams. I think the movie is more beloved for its authentic portrayal of student-athlete lifestyle and culture than for the ingenuity of its storytelling, which at times can border on painfully cliché. No one would accuse a romantic comedy of this era of being subtle, and in many ways that’s it’s charm. As the Trojans like to say, fight on!
Something to Stream
Uncut Gems, Good Time (Netflix): The Safdie brothers’ 2019 thriller starring Adam Sandler is probably well known to most of you, but I must’ve missed the news that it had been added to the Netflix library. If you haven’t seen it, and you’re prepared for one of the most stressful experiences of your life, it’s well-worth your time. Sandler plays a greasy diamond dealer trying to stay one step ahead of debt-collectors, surrounded by distinctive characters played by Lakeith Stanfield, NBA star Kevin Garnett, and tabloid-ready socialite Julia Fox. Not often are movies this lucid when they are so feverishly paced.
If you have seen Uncut Gems and love the Safdies’ propulsive, non-stop style, then check out their previous entry Good Time starring Robert Pattinson. The real indie movie heads swear it’s the better of the two.
Trailer Watch: WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn
One of the best books I read in the past year was “Billion Dollar Loser” by Reeves Wiedeman, an intimate and fascinating portrait of WeWork and its megalomaniac founder Adam Neumann, who had designs on making his company as large and influential as an Apple or Google and almost pulled it off.
While I highly HIGHLY recommend the book — it’s awesome — this documentary continues a long tradition of “well I didn’t read it but I saw the movie!” alternatives. Aaand my own personal tradition of being a completist who has to consume both.
It comes out April 2nd (next Friday) on Hulu.