Category: Drama

FUNNY GIRL (1968)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: William Wyler
CAST: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford, Walter Pidgeon
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 94% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Barbra Streisand elevates this otherwise rote musical melodrama with her ultra-memorable star turn as real-life stage performer Fanny Brice.


There is nothing wrong with Funny Girl that couldn’t have been fixed by the film not taking itself so seriously.  With its widescreen compositions and scores of extras and lavish stage productions featuring flocks of Ziegfeld girls in the most extravagant costumes imaginable, this should have been a romp, even with the serious bits in between.  Instead, the movie sinks under the weight of its pretentiousness, short-changing the funniest bits and wallowing in pathos way more than is necessary.  Thank goodness Barbra Streisand is there, giving a debut performance for the ages that is part Groucho Marx, part Debbie Reynolds, but mostly just Barbra.  Come for the spectacle, stay for the songs.

The story begins with Fanny Brice (Streisand) walking backstage at a theater and delivering her immortal opening line to a mirror: “Hello, gorgeous.”  From there, the rest of the movie is a flashback to the rise and rise of Fanny Brice, a plain-ish vaudeville chorus girl who is discovered by a roguish playboy, Nick Arnstein, played by Omar Sharif, who looks like a man whose last name would be anything BUT Arnstein.  He cleverly gets her boss to raise her pay to $50 a week (about $800 in today’s dollars, so not bad), and in the process captures Fanny’s heart.  Shortly after that, she’s invited to join Florenz Ziegfeld’s legendary troupe of dancing girls, where she manages to tweak his authority in probably the funniest number in the movie, “His Love Makes Me Beautiful.”

It’s in this number where the first tonal tug-of-war takes place between Streisand’s playfulness and the movie’s urgency to look “important.”  There is an earlier number, “I’m the Greatest Star”, that really showcases Streisand, but the movie never gets that tone right for the rest of the movie.  In “His Love Makes Me Beautiful”, she has these wonderful glances and occasional throwaway lines, but most of them are lost in medium or long shots that emphasize the extravagant Ziegfeld costumes and the expensive-looking set dressing.  It’s like watching a play where the lights are shining everywhere except the stage.

Arnstein comes and goes, sometimes for weeks or months at a stretch, always making sure to see Fanny when he’s in town but repeatedly pointing out that he doesn’t want to be tied down by a relationship.  Their “courtship” lasts through “People”, a song most people know without knowing what it’s from, and a curious number where Arnstein invites her to dinner in a private room upholstered entirely in red velvet, and we know and Fanny knows what’s going to happen, and she has a funny argument between her lust and her manners in “You Are Woman, I Am Man.”  The song also contains a duet with Arnstein, and brother, if you haven’t seen Omar Sharif crooning, you haven’t lived.

Everything comes to a head at the finale of Act One when Fanny learns Arnstein is sailing to Europe and decides to join him instead of going to the Ziegfeld girls’ next port of call.  Here is where Streisand really pours it on, proving her virtuosity with the classic “Don’t Rain on My Parade”, belting out note after note and ending on the iconic shot of her standing on a tugboat as it passes the Statue of Liberty.  If anyone ever doubted she was the real thing before that moment and this movie, their doubts were certainly erased by intermission.

Alas, all good things come to an end, and Act Two falls into a predictable series of economic rises and falls as Arnstein’s volatile income stream finally goes south permanently, while Fanny’s career continues arcing upwards without looking back.  It’s here where the pretentious sensibilities of the filmmakers finally take over for good.  In a second number that could have been downright hilarious, “The Swan”, the movie once again keeps its distance from Streisand’s (appropriate) mugging, asides, and pratfalls…although, being a ballet, it is interesting to see her doing all the dancing herself.

I found myself committing a critical sin by comparing this movie to another widescreen, elaborate movie musical from around the same era, My Fair Lady.  Here’s a movie shot on a grand scale with huge sets, lavish costumes, and big musical numbers, but instead of feeling ponderous, there is a lightness to it.  It zings along, even during the long stretches between songs, thanks to its crackling pace, and gives us just enough pathos to appreciate why we need glee and glamour.

Everything that’s wrong with Funny Girl could have been fixed by just lightening the mood, man.  You’ve got a star-making performance by an experienced theatre actress (Streisand is actually reprising the role she played on Broadway), you’ve got one of the most legendary directors of the time at the helm, William Wyler (Ben-Hur, Roman Holiday), and you’ve got some above-average songs that people can still hum over fifty years later.  Why cloak everything in this gloomy overcoat of affectation and heavy-handed emotional beats that we can see coming a mile away?

When all is said and done, Funny Girl is by no means a bad film.  Streisand is too good at what she does to let this movie fall by the wayside without recognition.  But without her, it’s easy to imagine this movie sinking into near-obscurity, yet another maudlin melodrama that crams 100 minutes of story into a 2-hour-and-35-minute film.  So, rather than mourn what could have been, let’s instead give thanks for what we’ve got: one of the last of the old-fashioned Hollywood musicals with a 24-karat-gold star at its center and a handful of memorable songs.  I suppose it could have been worse.  [insert shrug emoji here]

THE IRON CLAW

By Marc S. Sanders

A compelling sports movie requires that uphill battle that must be overcome.  Rocky achieved that standard.  Raging Bull might not have reached a plateau for its protagonist to defy his faults, but Jake LaMotta’s demons were effectively on display. Reminiscent of that film, is The Iron Claw – the wrestling film that reenacts that supposed cursed theme linked with the famed all star Von Erich family. 

Writer/Director Sean Durkin opens his film with the patriarch of the family, Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany), in the ring and putting his signature move, THE IRON CLAW, on an opponent.  The title of the picture occupies the screen in big letters, and we jump to the late 1970s where the four sons of Fritz are having breakfast.  Fritz tells the youngest, Michael (Stanley Simons), that he needs to start working out, building his physique to catch up to his impressively built brothers if he wants to compete like them.  Fritz makes it clear he loves Mike the least but the rankings can change if he works at it.  Durkin’s breakfast scene sets off the pattern of the film where the four boys will have to live under the mantra of their father’s iron claw of unwavering expectations. 

The stand out role belongs to Zac Efron as Kevin Von Erich.  If he does not earn at least an Oscar nomination, then people have not been paying attention.  Kevin is establishing a name for himself in the nearby Texas wrestling federation, and Fritz sees opportunity for him to carry the torch of the family into national and worldwide championships.  What Fritz could not accomplish in his youth, he will ensure his sons complete.  If it is not Kevin, it’ll be one of the other boys.  Kevin is protective of his brothers, as best he can against their father.  The mother, Doris (Maura Tierney, another under the radar performance), makes it her mission to stay out of her husband’s controlling design of mentoring in a household where almighty God will lead the way, and handguns represent the American freedom to bear.

The other brothers consist of Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) and David (Harris Dickinson).  Kerry was on his way to Olympic gold in shot put until the United States opted to withdraw from the games.  Thereafter, Fritz directs his boy’s focus on wrestling as well. Kerry eventually finds himself in the center ring spotlight too. Durkin’s film shapes out each boy’s destiny as cause and effect based on the outcomes of the other boys.

I do not want to share much more.  While I had heard of the Von Erich family, I was not familiar with what they encountered during the boys’ young adult upbringing and within the spotlight.  Sean Durkin writes well drawn characters based on the real-life figures.  Fritz was a villain, a harsh antagonist, who was not so much a father as he was a chess player using his sons as pawns to win and win again.  If a setback occurred, then he turned to another athletic boy in his regiment to step up and fill a void.  If one of the boys were progressing, then he became the father’s primary focus, while another was pushed down a notch.  Holt McCallany is astonishing in this role. Fritz was a coach and hardly a father.  Any scene he occupies defines the obedience his character expects of his family.  Along with many others involved in the film, he is worthy of Oscar recognition as well.

Zac Efron has gone full method with a chiseled body and a mop top haircut that is a full departure from his pretty boy athletic physique.  As Kevin, what he’s done with his body should garner applause, but Efron’s character is tormented with never accomplishing enough, while accepting his father’s oversight when opportunity presents itself with one of his other brothers.  Kevin and his siblings are absolutely forbidden to cry at loss or setback.  This only allows the pain to remain unhidden on Efron’s face.  With no dialogue, the lead actor puts his insecurities and suffering on display whether he’s in the ring, working out or crouched in bed.  This is a stellar performance, in line with Robert DeNiro’s unforgettable portrayal of Jake LaMotta – a tortured, yet talented soul and athletic fighter imprisoned within inescapable circumstances.

Efron has terrific chemistry with Lily James as Pam, Kevin’s wife.  She is an impressive actress worthy of more attention to her career.  Lily James is not the headliner of this picture, but her response to scenes with Efron and a particular one with Maura Tierny make her acting partners all the more effective.

As the mother to these powerful men, Maura Tierny mostly hides in the background.  Should there be a chance she earns an Oscar nomination, the scene where she simply stares despondently at a black dress offers enough evidence.  This one standout moment deserves a lot of attention.

Sean Durkin is worthy of enormous accolades.  He has an ability to depict multiple stories occurring in one caption.  There’s a dizzying moment where Kevin, Kerry and David are working through their own respective progress.  Durkin blends the three athletes together, where you eventually see one hulking, flexing chest.  Above, are the blurred, sweaty faces of the three men meshed together and over one another, while working through their regimental exercises.  Their faces are layered upon each other.  

A later scene will show Kevin and Kerry practicing in an outdoor ring, with Kerry fighting a hard physical challenge.  In the foreground of this nighttime exercise, is a flashlight moving through the fields.  A subsequent moment will explain that significance.  Sean Durkin beautifully balances several biographies within this famed family.  You are viewing multiple stories at once, and nothing is ever distracting. This amounts to outstanding writing and directing that demands multiple layers.  

I became aware later that there is another son who remains unaccounted for in this picture.  Apparently, that story was cut for pacing issues.  I’m not sure I’d say it’s unfair to disregard that person within the confines of this picture.  Most biographical films take certain liberties to assemble an engaging structure, and frankly the destiny of that son is similar to what occurs with others in the movie.  Durkin opted to avoid appearing repetitive in his storytelling.  So, I stand by this decision.  

The Iron Claw is certainly the most surprising film of the year for me.  Based upon what happened within the Von Erich family, it seems so apparent that a movie would eventually be generated.  Yet, falling into melodramatic schmaltz with a drama like this is an easy trap.  Sean Durkin dodged that obstacle with a sensational cast.  There is not one weak performance in this picture.  You could make a separate film out of each perspective offered.  It’s fortunate that Durkin found a way to balance everything beautifully.

The Iron Claw is one of the best pictures of the year.

CLASS ACTION

By Marc S. Sanders

Two sharp San Francisco attorneys go against one another in Michael Apted’s Class Action.  The hitch is that it is father vs daughter and the two were adversarial with each other long before this trial ever began.

Gene Hackman is Jed Ward, the small-time lawyer who grandstands big theatrics in a courtroom while fighting for the little man who’s repeatedly suffered at the negligence of Goliath corporations.  His daughter is Margaret Ward played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.  She’s vying to be partner for the giant law firm that represents an automobile manufacturer getting sued for faulty explosive gas tanks on their cars.  

Jed is bullish and cocky.  Margaret is trying to prove her dominance over a father who repeatedly cheated on mom and was hardly the devoted dad as he pursued one landmark case or bed partner after another.

I saw Class Action in college while taking a law studies class.  The case at hand was inspired by a well-known trial focused on Ford Pintos.  Ford was found to deliberately ignore a faulty car part because the cost to replace the item on all of their automobiles would far outweigh the cost to settle with all of the victims of the class action lawsuit.  That’s a neat connection showing what was real being weaved into a fictitious story.  

The problem with Apted’s film is the amount of melodramatic scenes devoted to its father and daughter main characters.  It’s hammered into our consciousness over and over, and like most arguments they run in circles, getting nowhere.  We get it already.  You’ve got animosity towards each other.  Move along!

The olive branch is eventually extended as the film is approaching its standard third act, conveniently thanks to the giant law firm’s indiscretions to conceal evidence for the sake of victory.  

I’m really not spoiling much here.  This is a paint by numbers, cookie cutter outline.  You can see where everything will fall as soon as the 20th Century Fox logo appears at the beginning.

These are two good actors, but Gene Hackman is far better.  Most would agree. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is not a good enough contender against him.  Hackman comes off fierce.  Mastrantonio comes off hokey like something out of a day time soap opera. She’s been much more impactful in other films like The Color Of Money and even Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.

I argue though that she would have been much more effective if James Horner’s instrumental music wasn’t used so much. I can feel the emotions with just the two playing out their scenes of dialogue and tempers flaring.  I shouldn’t need help to get there from a swooning saxophone that intrudes and plays over, of all people, the great Gene Hackman.  

Too much is focused on the family melodrama that also includes the mom/wife (Joanna Merlin) caught right in the middle.  I got tired of it.

I’m a sucker for courtroom drama.  I know.  In most movies, you know the beats of a cinematic trial.  You can easily predict which witness is going to be undone on the witness stand.  You likely will predict who will win the trial.  Yet, I get a thrill out of the rapid-fire pace of the questioning and the calls for objections with the barking rulings heaped on by the judge.  It’s all standard, but I gobble it up like potato chips.  The two leads are marvelous in the courtroom, despite the spoon fed ease the script allows.

When the two are screaming at each other about their past transgressions, I had no interest.  The film angles itself as a courtroom thriller with a twist on the litigators when it’s barely that way at all.  

It’s right in front of you guys!  An astounding case of deliberate negligence by one of the country’s biggest industrialists.  Why couldn’t we uncover more of the underhandedness that occurred there? Regrettably, the trial takes second banana to the trite family squabbles with a cheesy late ‘80s soundtrack. 

Hard and Fast Rule: Don’t ever play off the great Gene Hackman.

THE PAWNBROKER (1964)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Sidney Lumet
CAST: Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Jaime Sánchez
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 86%

PLOT: A Jewish pawnbroker, victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.


One of my favorite books about movies is Making Movies by Sidney Lumet, in which the legendary director explains in detail the moviemaking process from script selection through the preview screening and ancillary rights distribution.  He uses, of course, the movies from his own career as examples, from 12 Angry Men through Guilty as Sin (the book was first published in 1995).  One of the films he brings up many times is one I had not heard of when I picked up the book for the first time: The Pawnbroker, from 1964, starring Rod Steiger.  After reading the book many times, I found myself obsessed with finding and watching this, to me, unknown film.

For a long time, it remained a kind of missing link in Lumet’s filmography.  It wasn’t available on home video, and it wasn’t streaming anywhere.  In 2008, it was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry, and the New York Times calls it one of the 1,000 best films ever made.  Lumet is one of my favorite directors.  I was desperate to see this movie.

Some time ago, I finally found a (relatively) cheap copy on Blu Ray, and I sat down and pushed PLAY with anticipation.  I mention all of this because I believe I inadvertently made myself a victim of my expectations.  The film that unfolded was not quite as hard-hitting as I had hoped, even though the story is deep and dark.  Perhaps I am too jaded as a modern filmgoer, with so many other Holocaust-related films under my belt, to fully appreciate this intensely acted character study of a man in crisis.  I can see myself changing my opinion of this movie at some point in the future, maybe when I’m a little older.  For now, in my opinion, The Pawnbroker is a well-crafted film, thoughtfully written, but a little too heavy-handed for its own good.

Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger) is the aging Jewish owner of a pawn shop in New York City…I’m not familiar with the specific neighborhood, but I wanna say somewhere in the Bronx, or maybe Queens.  He and his Puerto Rican employee, Jesus Ortiz (Jaime Sánchez), run the shop with maximum efficiency and minimal customer interaction.  (Hey, look at that, a guy named Jesus with a Jewish boss, I only just now got that…)  Sol is not interested in the backstories of these desperate folks who bring in radios and candlesticks and school trophies in exchange for a couple of bucks each.  “Here’s your money, get out.”  Jesus, on the other hand, is a bundle of energy who sincerely wants to learn the trade and earn some money so he can get out of the 2-room apartment he shares with his mother.  Sol tolerates Jesus the same way a parent tolerates a hyperactive child.

Lumet and his production designer, Richard Sylbert, are very careful to show Sol’s store as nothing but a series of cages and bars.  We learn the reason for this as we see a series of flashbacks from Sol’s past: he was a Holocaust survivor.  (There’s a brilliant scene where Jesus asks Sol what those numbers on his arm are.  “Is that a secret society or something?  What do I do to join?”  Sol’s one-line answer is one of the best things in the script, followed later in the film by a monologue about clinging to a “bearded legend” that showcases Steiger’s talent to the nth degree, but feels a tad over-dramatic.)

Sol’s tragic past is the fuel that runs the engine of the film because it’s made him the man he is today: someone who doesn’t believe in anything anymore, not God, science, art, anything at all…except for one thing: money.  “Next to the speed of light, which Einstein says is the only absolute in the universe, second only to that, I rank money!”  While this sentiment seems as if it would feed into a racist stereotype, Sol never overtly occupies that space.  He is just a man who has seen too much and wants nothing except to get by.

There are suggestions that he is experiencing survivor’s guilt.  In his shop is a tear-a-day calendar showing September 29th.  When Jesus wants to rip it for the next day, Sol stops him.  Later, someone asks him if it’s an anniversary of something.  He says it is: “The day I didn’t die.”  That was the day he was powerless to stop a tragedy, and he should have died, but didn’t.  But he doesn’t frame it as a dramatic act.  I found that a marvelously layered response.  (There is another “suggestion” of his guilt in a monologue by a much older man, but that’s another one of the movie’s heavy-handed moments, so the less said about that, the better.)

There is also a suggestion that Sol is accepting payoffs from a local slum lord to launder money through his pawn shop.  A man comes by, says he needs money to repaint the building, Sol writes the man a check for $5,000, and the man gives him $5,000 in cash.  Why does Sol willingly acquiesce to this process of aiding and abetting a criminal?  I think it’s because he has learned to survive no matter the cost.  In one of his increasingly disturbing flashbacks to his days in the Nazi concentration camp, we watch as a man frantically attempts to scale a fence.  There’s no real hope of escape, but he tries anyway.  The guards don’t shoot him, but watch almost in bemusement.  One of them finally calls for another guard with a German shepherd.  And just yards away, Sol and other prisoners watch helplessly as the man is torn apart.  (Presumably, anyway.)

I haven’t even mentioned the social worker who comes by one day to solicit donations for a youth center, the local thugs (former friends of Jesus) who reek of foreshadowing, the slum lord himself (Brock Peters, playing totally against type as an amoral crook), or Jesus’s hooker girlfriend who knows how desperate Jesus is to get some money of his own and boldly offers her body to Sol in exchange for some cash.  Her act of desperation (featuring the first waist-up female nudity in a post-Code Hollywood film) only triggers more flashbacks for poor Sol. [HA! Jesus has a girlfriend who’s a prostitute…I only just got that one, too…]

By the end of the movie, events conspire that trigger even more feelings of guilt for Sol so that the film ends with him wandering out of his store and into the inner-city jungle with his hands bloody and his head bowed.  Has he realized the error of his ways, of his tendency to reject any kind of human connection?  Certainly his last act seems to demonstrate his remorse, but…has he really changed?  It’s said that, to figure out what a movie is about, look at how the main character changes from beginning to end.  Maybe I’m naïve, maybe I’ve been lucky enough in my life not to have experienced anything remotely resembling the tragedy of Sol’s life, but I felt nothing except mild shock at the end of The Pawnbroker, not because of any realizations about Sol’s character, but because of the events of the plot.  I don’t think that means the same thing as character development.  So, ultimately, I couldn’t really say what this movie is about beyond the ability of a fine director and a courageous actor to show the details of a man wounded so grievously in his past that he can barely tolerate mankind in the present.  Yes, we see the error of his ways…but does he?  You tell me.

MAESTRO

By Marc S. Sanders

Bradley Cooper’s second directorial film suffers from the same ailments as his first film.  Like his interpretation of A Star Is Born, Maestro is not as good as the sum of its parts.

Constructively speaking Maestro is a gorgeous looking picture with a first half in a comfortable, historic black and white followed by its second half in vibrant colors.  The acting from Cooper, as Maestro Leonard Bernstein is well performed.  Carey Mulligan is sensational at no matter what age she is portraying actress Felicia Montealegre, the conductor’s wife.  Within the scenes they share together there is a beautiful rhythmic exchange of dialogue, written by Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer.  Cooper also looks powerful as he reenacts the conductor in front of his choruses and orchestras.  There are also inspiring shots that start out vague and unclear only to come into a full blossom as Cooper’s camera maintains an unbroken focus on an image. 

All that being said, none of it matters because the script from Cooper and Singer is muddied.  While Mulligan and the actor/director are in the midst of marital argument on Thanksgiving day, much is hard to understand as they naturally speak over one another, and what can be made out seems to mean nothing as they fight over people and issues that I do not believe are ever touched upon in the picture.  A scene like this looks like an actor’s dream piece, but it is hollow of substance. 

Like A Star Is Born, there are characters that enter Maestro for long winded scenes and then are never heard from again.  Either Bradley Cooper does not feel the weight of their importance, or he mistakenly presumes the audience will catch on.  An outdoor brunch with Felicia, Leonard, another couple and I believe a mentor or agent of Leonard’s seems well written, but I have no idea who those people are or what kind of influence they carry.  I was hoping to realize later, but those three amount to nothing.  Was the other couple supposed to be Leonard’s parents, and perhaps they were meeting Felicia for the first time?  I’m just not sure.

Bradley Cooper is a master with his camera.  An important moment in Bernstein’s life is when he gets the call to perform at Carnegie Hall when the other conductor calls in sick.  With its black and white imagery, a young and enthusiastic Leonard answers a phone call while a black square, with light from behind, occupies three quarters of the screen.  I was wondering if that was a stage curtain that needs to be lifted.  I was half right.  It’s a window curtain to the apartment Leonard shares with his gay lover.  The film moves into high energy as the would-be composer slaps his lover’s bottom and leaps down the stairs with a quick edit into the theater.  Mike Nichols would be proud. 

Another moment that struck me was Cooper pointing his camera up into the tall reaches of his apartment building staircase.  It’s quite dark.  You may have trouble realizing what you are looking at but then his son drops a paper airplane “good luck” note down to his father on the bottom floor.  These images blossom into something as alive as I would imagine the director/co-writer/actor regards Bernstein.

So, there is much to praise in Maestro.  Unfortunately, the assembly of these shiny, inventive, and magnificent pieces of film do not mesh very well together.  Bernstein led a homosexual lifestyle, even going so far as to welcome a lover into the home he shared with Felicia.  Carey Mulligan is excellent with expressions of resentment towards this other life that her husband follows.  However, the storyline never feels fully fleshed out.  We never get an opportunity to see the value or the menace of the other relationships that Leonard holds on to.  A so-so moment is accompanied by Bernstein’s saxophone opening to West Side Story.  The piece is used as a subtle tool of deceit and ignorant cruelty by Leonard while escorting his apprentice/lover in the home he shares with an angered Felicia in the foreground.  We presume the threat that Felicia likely feels, but it never comes to the surface. 

Bernstein’s career is glossed over as well.  Who pushed him to move on to bigger moments and acquire greater crescendos in his life?  I’d like to think it was Felicia, but I’m not certain.  Felicia has conversations with Leonard’s sister (Sarah Silverman) and other acquaintances, but what is she really alluding to or really talking about?

The most impressive moment in the film is when the Maestro conducts the London Symphony Orchestra at Ely Cathedral.  (I’ll own up and say I looked up what this scene was on IMDb.)  Bradley Cooper does a masterful reenactment of Berstein, dripping in shaggy grey hair sweat, dressed in a three-piece tuxedo with baton in hand.  This is a major multi talent working in films today.  Cooper studied film footage of the scene over a six-year period to get this six-and-a-half-minute unbroken moment caught on film.  It’s positively mesmerizing and I could watch this over and over again.  I’m waiting for the side-by-side comparison to appear on You Tube soon. It is reminiscent of what Rami Malek did as Freddy Mercury at the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium in the film Bohemian Rhapsody. 

Still, this scene much like a lot of the footage in Maestro seems to just be wedged in there.  There’s a balletic flow to some moments in Cooper’s film and then there are times that come out of nowhere and I’m left to wonder how exactly we arrived and what was truly going on in Bernstein’s life when he conducted at this historic moment time.  I’m watching a blazingly fine impersonation of Bradley Cooper doing Leonard Bernstein but I’m lacking the sub conscious dimension a biographical film should have at this point in a historical figure’s life.

Carey Mulligan is laying everything out to portray Felicia and her best moments come in the last third of the picture when the poor woman is struck with breast cancer that has spread to most of her body. We witness how she lives with the illness along with her separated husband by her side.  I’ve seen ill women before in films.  I know I sound crude by saying it’s nothing new.  I’m still allowed to be impressed though.  It’s a huge feat to bring a performance to this kind of level.

The makeup work is marvelous too.  Raw footage of the real Leonard Bernstein is shown before the end credits, and I’m impressed with how much Cooper looks in comparison.  The aging of him and Mulligan over the decades since the late 1930’s all the way through the mid 1980’s is perfectly captured.  At one moment, Carey Mulligan looks just like my mother.  I choked up a little bit when Felicia gazes upon Leonard at the Ely Cathedral.  Same hairstyle.  Same eyes.  Same expression.  Mom would have even worn a soft blue evening gown like that in the mid-1970s.

I wanted to like Maestro more than I did.  I almost feel guilty for not liking it as much.  There is magnificent camera work, sensational acting, wonderous music and perfect impressions on display, but the puzzle just did not have all of its pieces assembled together properly.  Sadly, Maestro lacks the focus it needs, either for the famed conductor’s amazing career or for his relationship with Felicia with his not so concealed homosexual lifestyle on the side.  Bradley Cooper put together a million magnificent moments, but it caused him to overlook the enduring structure of his subject.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Robert Aldrich
CAST: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, Maidie Norman
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 92% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A delusional former child star torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.


I have heard of this movie by reputation almost my entire life, and only now, near the end of my 52nd year on Earth, have I finally sat down to watch What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, a movie that has been called a camp classic, a horror film in the guignol tradition, and a showcase for two of the greatest bitches in the history of cinema.  And let me tell you, it was worth the wait.  Bette Davis’s performance as Baby Jane Hudson is the stuff of legend: evil, despicable, vile, and impossible to look away from.  She doesn’t just chew the scenery, she purees it.

And yes, before faithful readers get up in my grill, this is one of the slowly growing list of films where the main character is an absolute douchebag, and I not only tolerate it, I celebrate it.  It’s impossible not to.  Like Christian Bale or Jack Torrance, Davis hypnotizes viewers by so perfectly embodying the character that it becomes impossible to imagine anyone else playing it.  It’s been said that at one point, Joan Crawford was going to play Baby Jane, but as talented as Ms. Crawford was, I can’t imagine her improving on Davis’s fearless performance.  This is the very definition of “commit to the bit.”

If you’re like me before I watched the movie, you know the bare bones of the story.  Back in the heyday of vaudeville, Baby Jane Hudson with her golden curls was the darling of the stage, entrancing audiences with her heartbreaking rendition “I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy.”  Her slightly older sister, Blanche, was ignored by her talented sister and, tragically, her father.  But karma is a bitch, and in the early-to-mid-1930s, Blanche becomes a Hollywood superstar, while Baby Jane toils in obscurity, clearly an inferior talent to her celebrated older sister.

One night, there is a terrible “accident” in front of their house (an old Hollywood mansion that once belonged to Valentino), and Blanche is paralyzed from the waist down.  For the next thirty years, Blanche is confined to a wheelchair on the second floor of their mansion, while the delusional Jane, who in her late sixties still wears her Baby Jane makeup and curls, dutifully brings up Blanche’s meals and verbally abuses her.  Their part-time maid, Elvira (Maidie Norman, unknown to me, but quite good in a pivotal role), discovers a trove of Blanche’s fan mail…opened and discarded by Jane.

How to describe these scenes of emotional and verbal abuse?  The words that come out of Jane’s mouth are as harsh as you can get in a movie from 1962.  (In one scene, watch her mouth carefully, and you can see her call Blanche a “bitch” just as a buzzer drowns out her voice.)  But because Blanche, with the patience of a saint, puts up with it, we the audience are forced to accept it.  I mean, I wanted to punch Jane in the face about 30 minutes into this two-plus-hour movie, but I had to tough it out because Blanche is toughing it out.  At that point, I just wanted to see what kind of karmic fate awaited this intolerable harridan.  I wanted her to get trampled by horses while being drawn and quartered by four tractors.

But this is just summary.  I’m not doing the movie justice.  For a 61-year-old movie, it felt just as tense and thrilling as anything I’ve seen in theaters this or any year.  The term “camp” I absolutely disagree with when applied to this movie.  Camp occurs when someone genuinely believes they’re making a great film, and the result is so laughably bad it’s good.  Ed Wood is camp.  Reefer Madness is camp.  Troll 2 is camp.  But NOT What Ever Happened…  Director Robert Aldrich knew what a casting coup he got with Davis and Crawford in the leads, two actresses whose well-known feuds were constantly reported.  All he had to do was turn them loose on the script and keep the cameras rolling.  Rather than getting a movie that got overcooked by hammy histrionics, Aldrich got a top-notch thriller that keeps audiences off-kilter right up to the last five minutes.  That’s not an exaggeration.  As such, this cannot qualify as “camp” because the result was not a bad movie, but a brilliant one.

The different ways in which the screws get turned in such a claustrophobic thriller are ingenious.  Blanche has a pet parakeet that flies away while Jane is cleaning the cage…so she says.  Jane serves dinner to Blanche one day, always with a covered dish, and just as she walks out, she casually mentions there are rats in the basement.  Blanche and we look with horror at the covered dish waiting on her table.  Blanche tries to send a distress signal to their next-door neighbor; the way THAT scene plays out would have warmed the cockles of Hitchcock’s heart.  Blanche discovers that Jane has been practicing forging Blanche’s signature…UH oh.  One day the maid, Elvira, sees too much, and I found myself yelling at the screen when it becomes apparent her life is in danger.

The whole movie works on you like that.  I did a lot of yelling at the screen, just like your stereotypical rude audience member.  At one point, Jane has lied and lied and dug a hole so deep she can’t find a way out, and she pleads to Blanche, “Help me, Blanche, I don’t know what to do!”  The things I yelled at the screen at that point, I will not repeat here, but they involved words that rhymed with “witch”, “ducking”, and “blunt.”  That’s how well the movie got under my skin, in a good way, I should hasten to add.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is one of the finest thrillers I’ve ever seen.  I hesitate to call it a horror film because, in a way, I guess it transcends the horror genre.  It includes some occasional horrific imagery, but the movie is too complex, too rooted in real-world physics and situations for me to see it as a horror film.  It’s a domestic thriller that flirts with self-indulgence, but the performances are so good, we forgive it when, for example, Jane performs her old Baby Jane number, her voice croaking on the high notes like a frog on helium.  In any other movie, I can imagine people would shake their heads and mutter, “Oh, brother…”  In this movie, we still shake our heads, but in awe of an utterly unafraid actor.

As for why I give it a “9” instead of a “10”…ask me after watching it yourself and I’ll tell you.

SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (1964)

by Miguel E. Rodrigugez

DIRECTOR: John Frankenheimer
CAST: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, Martin Balsam
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 91%

PLOT: United States military leaders plot to overthrow the President because he supports a nuclear disarmament treaty, and they fear a Soviet sneak attack.


Barely two years after The Manchurian Candidate shocked audiences, director John Frankenheimer delivered the goods again with a political conspiracy thriller that is the equal of Candidate in almost every way.  Were it not for some overcooked sermonizing during a transitional scene, I would almost call Seven Days in May a perfect example of the genre.  I’m frankly a little surprised it’s not mentioned more often in the same breath with other similar thrillers like Fail Safe, The Parallax View, and Three Days of the Condor.

The action starts on a Monday and, predictably, spools out over the next seven days.  We learn that the current American President, Jordan Lyman (Fredric March) has just signed a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviets, this being the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s.  His actions have brought his approval ratings to a record-setting low, and demonstrators outside the White House express their desire to see someone else in the Oval Office: General James Scott (Burt Lancaster), a hawkish individual who sees no evidence the Russians will ever honor such a treaty.  General Scott’s aide is Colonel “Jiggs” Casey (Kirk Douglas), a soldier who disagrees with Scott’s views privately, but who knows his duties and performs them admirably.

Over the next couple of days, Casey picks up scraps of conversations from senators and other generals critical of the President.  There is talk of the President attending an “alert”, or an exercise in which armed forces are scrambled in a drill; uncharacteristically, he’s attending alone – no press.  A friend of Casey’s mentions something called “ECOMCON”, a secret Army base in El Paso, and a mysterious “Site Y.”  A Pentagon messenger relays a teletype message from General Scott to other members of the Joint Chiefs about who’s placing bets in the Preakness pool…then gets transferred to Pearl Harbor.  Casey wonders why questions about a horse race would be broadcast over Top Secret channels…

Watching Casey piece the clues together is one of the pleasures of this movie.  It never talks down to the audience, depending on them to follow Casey’s line of reasoning while he draws his own conclusions.  Once he brings his suspicions to the President, and the President elects not to attend the alert, things start happening very fast.  It’s here where the height of suspense occurs, as three men are sent in different directions to accomplish three separate fact-finding missions.  As each man got closer to achieving their goal, there was a feeling in the air, a vibe, a tone that felt like disaster was just around the corner, knocking on the next-door window.  A man drives his car into the desert in search of the secret base in El Paso, and I half-expected the sands to just open up and swallow him whole.

Frankenheimer always was an expert at that kind of suspense generation.  Second only to Hitchcock among his contemporaries, he was a genius at creating tense situations with a minimum of flash, depending on strength of story and screenplay, and his actors, to generate a nervous tension in his viewers.  Those powers are on full display here.

It’s odd…Seven Days in May is a political thriller that doesn’t have any real action scenes or sequences.  A plane crash is referenced but never seen, as opposed to today’s films that would make room in the special FX budget to show audiences the crash.  At least in this film, it’s far more effective when it’s revealed but never seen.  That’s pretty gutsy.  There are no pumped-up chase scenes between a guy with crucial evidence and the shadow forces trying to keep it a secret.  It’s all handled very simply, which makes everything more plausible…and, as a further result, much more suspenseful.

I haven’t mentioned Ava Gardner’s character yet, Eleanor Holbrook, a former lover of General Scott’s.  How she figures in Casey’s plans to uncover evidence of Scott’s treason leads to a devastating scene involving old love letters and mistaken assumptions.  It’s some brilliantly incisive writing, and another example of how the movie achieves plausibility through simplicity.

Any further discussion would necessarily involve spoilers, so I’ll stop here.  Seven Days in May is a prime example of a good story told well, with hardly any bells or whistles.  It reminded me, for some reason, of some of those classic ‘80s thrillers where their only reason for existence was to turn up the tension without getting bogged down in subtext (Body Heat, No Way Out, Blow Out).  There is that one sermonizing speech, as I mentioned before, and I cringed a little when it happened, but it’s a minor quibble.  This is a superior thriller that deserves to be seen.

MAESTRO (2023)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Bradley Cooper
CAST: Carey Mulligan, Bradley Cooper, Matt Bomer, Sarah Silverman, Maya Hawke
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 80% Certified Fresh

PLOT: This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.


Bradley Cooper’s Maestro is a film of scope and depth and tremendous technical artistry, both in front of and behind the camera.  The performances from the two leads contain some of the best acting I’ve ever seen, especially their argument during a Thanksgiving Day parade.  But I cannot deny that, for reasons I’ll try (and probably fail) to explain, I did not feel emotionally invested in the story until the final two or three reels, when something occurs that, if it were fiction, could easily be dismissed as a shameless attempt at Oscar-baiting.  The fact that this really happened lends these final scenes an emotional weight that was missing from everything that came before.

The story is straightforward, but beautifully told, visually.  After a brief prologue, we meet a young Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper), in bed with his male lover (hope that’s not a spoiler), as he gets an early morning phone call that will change his life forever.  This opening scene sets the visual tone for the first half of the film: standard 1:1.33 framing as opposed to widescreen to give it a classic feel, as well as gorgeous black-and-white cinematography.  Indeed, this opening shot alone looks like it could hang in a museum of modern art and not look out of place.

Everything proceeds breathlessly from there, with some conversations held at speeds that would make the Gilmore Girls dizzy.  After a series of early musical triumphs, he meets the woman that will become the polestar of his personal life: actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn (Carey Mulligan, in a performance that will almost certainly win her an Oscar nomination).  After some verbal sparring/flirtation, it becomes clear to them, and to us, that they are meant for each other, despite his later dalliances with male fans and hangers-on.

I especially liked a scene during this early section where Felicia and Lenny – as his friends and family called him – dine with some older friends (or family? I can’t quite remember), and an older gentleman gives him some advice: “They’ll never give Leonard Bernstein an orchestra in America.  But Leonard S. Burns…”  I loved that scene because I loved how Bernstein’s entire career is a rebuke to that well-meant but wrong-minded sentiment.

This gentleman advises Bernstein to give up writing scores for musicals, but Felicia disagrees.  That sets up a wonderful sequence where Felicia and Lenny watch a rehearsal of the stage musical On the Town, with sailors leaping balletically, and then in a fantasy reminiscent of The Red Shoes, Bernstein himself becomes one of the sailors, and the dance becomes a micro-miniature of their relationship and his early successes.  It’s a thrilling little cutaway that had me grinning the whole time.

From there, the movie jumps forward chronologically in leaps and bounds, giving only a cursory glance at the 1960s before settling more or less for the rest of the film in the mid-to-late 1970s, with Bernstein’s face becoming the craggy icon that I personally remember from my own youth, while Felicia Bernstein somehow looks just as beautiful as she did thirty years and four children ago.  I would blame that on movie magic, but I mean, we are talking about Carey Mulligan here, so they get a pass.  And then the last act of the film arrives and we get a glimpse perhaps of why Mulligan receives top billing over the actor-star-director Cooper.  And that’s all I’ll say about that.

As I said, the movie looks amazing.  Obviously the period décor and costuming are all spot on, but the cinematography and direction – what theatre or film studies majors would call mise-en-scène – are just incredible to behold.  Another shot that stands out in my mind is a scene where Bernstein is conducting, and we get an angle where we are looking into the wings, but his undulating shadow looms large, and standing in that shadow, but still illuminated, is Felicia.  Verbal descriptions won’t do them justice, just see for yourself.

But as I mentioned, I just wasn’t invested in the story from an emotional standpoint.  I felt like I was watching an extremely inventive and ingenious exercise in moviemaking.  I suppose I could compare it to the recent sci-fi film The Creator, if that doesn’t get me accused of hyperbole.  Both films show supreme confidence in staging, cinematography, and direction.  But like The Creator, Maestro feels like something is missing where its heart should be for the first 75% of its running time.  Things happen, arguments take place, children are born, Lenny gets a little sloppy with his paramours, but I never felt like any of it really meant anything to me as the viewer.

I tried asking myself, “What statement is the film making?”  And I couldn’t answer that question, aside from fulfilling its purpose in presenting the facts of a story in almost documentary-like fashion.  But the performances and cinematography are so stunning that I must acknowledge that fact with a higher rating than I would normally give a film that doesn’t really grab me emotionally.  (EXCEPT for the last 25%, I mean…I don’t want to give anything away, but the last reels are heart-tugging.)

So, do you want to see this movie?  Well, certainly not if you are an absolute acolyte of Leonard Bernstein.  You’ll see some pretty cool stuff musically, but Maestro does not paint an altogether flattering picture when it comes to his personal life.  But if you want to see one of the best-acted, best-directed, best-LOOKING films of the year…Maestro is your ticket.

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND

By Marc S. Sanders

Anxiety and the unknown are the themes of Sam Esmail’s apocalyptic Leave the World Behind.  Actually, I can’t even be sure it’s apocalyptic or not until the end arrives.  Even then I wasn’t so sure.  

A family (Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke as the parents, Farrah Mackenzie, Charlie Evans as the kids) make an impromptu getaway from New York City and rent a luxurious upstate air B & B for the next five days.  Upon arrival they are quickly relaxed amid all the amenities and beautiful outdoor pool.  A visit to the beach is refreshing until an oil tanker arrives from the deep ocean waters and drifts upon the shore with no warning.  Strange, but okay.  No need for that to ruin the vacation.

Then other unexpected occurrences happen.  A charming gentleman dressed handsomely in a tuxedo and his formally dressed daughter appear on the doorstep of the home in the middle of the night.  They are played very well by Mahershala Ali and Myha’la.  The man claims that he’s the owner of the house and while attending a concert in the city, they needed to make a quick exit and the best place to hold up was at this house.  Conveniently, he does not have any ID to prove his identity along with no specific personal items in this home he claims to own, not even the title ownership papers.  No photos of family tucked away anywhere.  He does have a key to the liquor cabinet, however.

Quickly, the scene is set where the internet goes down.  Federal blue screen warnings appear on every television channel.  Cell phones don’t work.  Deer, lots and lots of deer, appear in the backyard and then disappear.  Pink flamingos wade in the pool.  Elon Musk’s white Tesla cars have a stand out scene.  Roberts then recalls seeing a grizzled Kevin Bacon collecting an abundance of supplies when she made an earlier shopping trip in the local town.  

The paranoia starts to set in beginning with Julia Roberts’ character Amanda.  Amanda declares early on that she fucking hates people.  Hawke’s husband character, Clay, is not ready to hit any panic button and is happy to accommodate the strangers on the doorstep and just wait for the internet to be restored with a logical explanation.  Ali’s character, known as G.H., lends a welcome smile but it’s clear he’s not sharing all that he’s thinking or maybe what he knows.  

Sam Esmail’s film wants to provide a demonstration of how people respond when they don’t know all that’s going on, particularly when modern technology fails us.  A more relatable inconvenience is suggested as Mackenzie’s character Rose is frustrated that her streaming channel shut down just as she was starting to watch the final episode of the sitcom, Friends.  I felt her anguish immediately as my daughter consumes the trials and tribulations of Ross and Rachel on a repetitive cycle.  Ironically, streaming goes down and now the girl can’t watch Friends.  Netflix is the distributor of this film.  Yet, I think they just gave a ringing endorsement for a dying medium.  If only this girl collected the DVDs.  

My problem with Leave the World Behind is the slow pace of it all.  This is one of those movies where its triumphs hinge upon the final five minutes or so.  Either you applaud what sums up the last two and a half hours you invested, or you roll your eyes at where the picture drops you off with the urge to throw your popcorn at the screen.  

Watching Leave the World Behind brought back experiences of shows like Lost or The Walking Dead.  The set ups are brilliantly intriguing from one development to another.  The follow through on each new happening amounts to nothing or at least not anything where I can suspend my disbelief.  Questions are answered with questions.  It’s like calling an insurance company for information following a car accident.  You just want to slam the phone down.

When Ali’s character chooses to check on a neighbor, he sees a watch embedded in the sand nearby.  He picks it up only to get a fright that makes us jump.  The viewer sees nothing else and we are led to believe that Ali sees nothing else, until Esmail goes to a wide overhead shot showing the massive wreckage of a commercial airplane crash, complete with black smoke and flames and endless amounts of luggage and debris.  It’s hard for me to buy a scene like this.  G.H. doesn’t smell any burning fire nearby?  He doesn’t hear anything? He doesn’t see any other debris left mere inches away from the wristwatch only until Esmail’s direction goes from closeup to wide?  I cannot accept the character’s tunnel vision.  My eyes would go towards the crashed plane before I’d ever discover a wristwatch.  It’s just eerily quiet.  The director’s manipulation is a set up shock for me, the viewer, to grab my attention.  Yet, it backfires because it’s completely implausible.  There are many moments like this in the film.

Other than Marhershala Ali (who I still insist should be considered a viable candidate for the next James Bond or a 007 adversary), the rest of the cast is not dynamic enough.  Julia Roberts is working a little too hard.  Ethan Hawke is not working hard enough.  The dialogue is often boring arriving at no conclusions.  Thankfully, most scenes are enhanced by unusual camera angles from Esmail’s artistic freedoms with his lens.  It’s reminiscent of the deliberately weird structure that Stanley Kubrick often did with The Shining.  Nevertheless, it’s exhausting after a while.

Sam Esmail’s work is no doubt shown through long ponderous imagination.  I certainly felt Julia Roberts’ frustration on display, but still, I got the point.  I see no reason to repeat the same lines at higher volume.  I got the point of a lack of trust between the two parties being brought together.  However, I just got tired of the act.  The racial elephant in the room is even suggested.  Though I wish it wasn’t. People quickly forget that George Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead steered clear of any racial factor, and just look at the legacy of that film from the era of the Civil Rights Movement.

The ending that arrives seems inevitable.  Without revealing anything literal, it is doom and gloom.  However, I might have had more appreciation if suddenly the TV and internet got restored and these odd occurrences all just happened to be one big nothing.  At the very least, then I’d understand that this whole freaking planet would just go nuts without their You Tube, Instagram and Netflix.  

You might have had a conversation at one point in the last decade or so that began as “How did we ever manage to survive before the internet?”  The truth is we did just fine.  The adults in Leave the World Behind never stop to remember that though. 

MAY DECEMBER

By Marc S. Sanders

A blaring piece of pounding piano music from Marcelo Zarvos hearkens awake the silent opening few seconds of Todd Haynes’ May December against that of a caterpillar/butterfly terrarium.  I don’t like the music and I’m immediately reaching for the volume control on my remote.  It’s only as the film progresses, however, that I develop a grateful appreciation for the often-disruptive soundtrack.

Julianne Moore and Charles Melton are Gracie and Joe Yoo, the relationship referenced in the film’s title.  Twenty years prior, Gracie, at age 36 who already had children and a husband of her own, had an affair with Joseph, a 13-year-old seventh grader at the time, in the storage area of a Savannah GA pet shop where they worked together.  Gracie went to prison for the crime of statutory rape and delivered their baby while serving her sentence.  Once her term was finished, the two continued their relationship and got married, bearing a set of twins, a boy and girl.

As the twins are approaching graduation, a television actress named Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) has arrived in town to do observational research and interviews to prepare for her portrayal of Gracie in a made for TV account of what occurred.  On the surface, all seems calm with the past put behind everyone.  Townsfolk will say that Gracie and Joe are so appreciated and loved in the community, and they love each other.  However, the script from Samy Burch will reveal otherwise as Elizabeth develops different kinds of connections with Gracie and Joe, respectively, as well as others she speaks with in town, including Gracie’s attorney, her ex-husband, the pet shop owner, and Gracie’s now adult son from her first marriage.  His name is Georgie (Cory Michael Smith) who was close friends with Joe until the affair was revealed, and now let’s everything hang out avoiding any kind of subtlety.  He’s even candid about what he believes occurred in Gracie’s childhood that could have dictated why she committed her act.

Todd Haynes’ picture is a complete character study of a story that many would regard as sordid or seedy trash material to talk about over dinner with friends.  People like Gracie and Joe may seem real to any of us who live in another part of the country.  We will never have any kind of relationship with them.  They are meant for cover stories in People magazine and The Inquirer.  It’s soap opera junk or trashy romance novels brought to reality.  It’s easy to judge the kind of person Gracie in particular is because what she has done is wrong and disturbing.  All these years later and they are still receiving packages on their doorstep that contain feces.  Gracie committed a terrible crime, but what does an act like this say about someone who would go to that length, so many years later? 

The performances in this film are astounding.  Charles Melton especially.  Samy Burch writes a disturbing and well-drawn character with Joe.  He’s thirty-six years old now, in 2015 when this story takes place, and as his children are graduating and are about to make their home an empty nest, he seems so much more immature than them.  A telling scene occurs when his son takes out a joint and practically instructs Joe on how to use it.  Joe coughs uncontrollably.  He gets ill, and it is his son who is calming him down.  Gracie also appears to treat Joe like the child she bedded all those years ago, instructing him to straighten up the house and put away his butterfly garden, or not to get into bed because he reeks of the BBQ he used earlier in the day.  Joe lives in an adult body, but he skipped his progressive years to go straight into marriage and fatherhood, and therefore he has not had an opportunity to grow up.

Julianne Moore plays delusional all too convincingly.  She might have confessed guilt to her crime.  She served her time, but as her attorney and Georgie will imply, none of that means anything if she still believes she did nothing so terrible.  She’s now married to Joe, who is now well past legal age and has had a twenty-year relationship with him, as well as the children they share.  Gracie happily accepts her new role as a baker in the community.  Yet, it doesn’t even occur to her that some acquaintances merely place orders just to keep her occupied.  Either Gracie chooses to wear blinders or she’s truly unaware of how she’s considered; still remaining a pariah within her social circle.  It’s devastating when someone cancels a cake order, tells her to keep the money that was paid for the work, but is also told that the cake no longer needs to be baked.  Especially now, as her children from her second marriage are leaving the home for college, she is realizing that she has no worth or value to anyone anymore.  No one even wants to sample her cake any longer.  Part of me wants to say it serves her right, but with Julianne Moore’s performance, it’s also terribly heartbreaking.  There are acts we commit in our lives that we will never, ever recover from.

Natalie Portman adds another accomplished performance to an outstanding resume.  Todd Haynes assists with demonstrating how manipulative and subtle Elizabeth, the starlet actress, is supposed to be.  When she first arrives at the couple’s home for a summer barbecue, Haynes captures Elizabeth with no jewelry on and wearing a hat and sunglasses that she never takes off.  Gracie, Joe and the others come to greet her and offer her a hot dog, but Elizabeth doesn’t reveal herself.  She keeps herself hidden.  She’s begun a camouflage as she initiates her observations.  As the story moves on, we get to see how perhaps a Julliard trained method actor prepares.  She begins to apply her makeup just like Gracie would.  Elizabeth dresses like Gracie.  She wears her hair like Gracie.  Elizabeth duplicates Gracie’s hand gestures captured in news articles.  Most significantly, she develops a bond with Joe, just like Gracie did.  A crumpled-up letter from Gracie that Joe has held on to since they began their affair twenty years ago, is reintroduced later in the film that Elizabeth pounces on.  Todd Haynes captures an unbroken take of Portman reciting the letter in a mirror and it’s an eye-opening moment for the character.  Suddenly, I don’t see Elizabeth anymore.  I see Gracie, and Natalie Portman is playing the predatory sex deviant.

By 2015, this story is a been there/done that.  The general public has stopped caring.  Only a few still carry an anger with those packages that are left on the doorstep.  Otherwise, there’s nothing left to share or care about.  Yet, May December does a fine job of showing the residual detritus of what’s come from such an illicit affair.  Gracie’s husband before the affair will say he’s over the betrayal and humiliation, but clearly he’s not.  Gracie now has two families.  The first family from a standard marriage with adult and teen children she greets as if they are neighborhood kids.  She’s on the outside of what she used to have as a mother. Then there is the second family consisting of the college age daughter she delivered while in prison and the twins that came thereafter.  An awkward moment occurs in a restaurant when the two families run into one another.  No one is well recovered from Gracie’s transgressions, even if she served her time.

Reflecting back on the music, I wondered why it made such a presence in this intimate, quiet drama.  It literally pounds at you every time it is reintroduced.  I believe it first serves as an abundance of the cheesy melodrama that naturally spawns from an unwell story like this.  Elizabeth is set to appear in a television movie adaptation of this ripped from the headlines account, much like a Lifetime movie of the week which shamelessly thrives on this kind of gossip trash.  The music seems to tell me to “LOOK AT WHAT SHE DID!!!!!!”  Later though, Marcelo Zarvos’ composition seems to remind me that this is not just “another story” as Elizabeth freely dismisses it when talking to Joe during a personal crisis of insecurity.  Joe immediately snaps back at her that this is not just some story.  “This is (his) life!!!!!” 

Before Todd Haynes’ film begins, terrible acts have occurred.  During the course of the movie, we see that terrible results remain.  The narrative of May December is kept interesting because we don’t learn everything at once.  There is exposition to uncover as soon as the film begins all the way to the very end where Gracie undoes all of Elizabeth’s prep work with a curveball truth.  Then, we witness Elizabeth do one take after another on a soundstage with a pet shop prop snake twisting around her arms as the seduction of a young, teenage boy is reenacted.  I don’t think Elizabeth got a convincing grasp on what makes Gracie and Joe tick, and now she questions what she invested in and what she sacrificed of herself in order to learn about the character she committed to portraying.

It’s disturbing what Gracie did.  Perhaps it’s at least as ominous that it is now being duplicated for the sake of entertainment in front of a worldwide audience.