Shared Darkness

Obsession, in all its various shapes and forms, is a rich thematic vein when it comes to filmmaking. And of course labyrinthine myths and legends are integral parts of storytelling proper, but they also crop up and gather naturally around a variety of Hollywood productions — from ambitious but troubled blockbusters to the works of secretive and/or iconoclastic auteurs. All these swirling elements come together in Room 237, director Rodney Ascher’s nonfiction indulgence of a bunch of theories about the true meaning of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film The Shining — hypotheses that, ultimately, even Mel Gibson’s wild-eyed character from Conspiracy Theory or Jim Carrey‘s digit-fixated paranoiac from The Number 23 would have trouble believing.



So does that make Room 237 — its title referring to a notably spooky suite in the film — a waste of time, or even boring? No, not at all. Even though several of these analytical readings don’t pass a cursory smell test, and all have been pretty much debunked by Leon Vitali, the late Kubrick’s personal assistant on The Shining, that doesn’t dint the film’s power as a testament and kind of paean to the sticky psychological hold of great art. One interviewee views Kubrick’s liberal adaptation of Stephen King’s bestselling novel as an indictment of the U.S. government’s treatment of indigenous peoples, while for another — seeing significance in the number 42, and its divisibles — it is a sweeping parable about the Holocaust. Still another sees The Shining as an elaborate confessionary lament on the part of Kubrick for his involvement in faked space exploration footage with the government. (“I’m not saying we didn’t go to the moon,” he says, before opining that he’s setting himself up for an audit. “I’m just saying that what we saw was faked, and it was faked by Stanley Kubrick.”)

What Ascher doesn’t do, for better and worse, is offer up push-back or analysis of this conjecture, or query his nine different subjects about whether any of these theories might in fact be mutually exclusive. (In fact, Ascher doesn’t even show his subjects, some of whom are interviewed over the phone, it’s evident.) A movie of more intellectual rigor or ambition might have tackled that. Instead, Room 237 is a platform for their compulsions and fixations, and in its unironic embrace of their singular truths it sometimes takes on the feeling of trying to engage a schizophrenic bus passenger on their own conversational terms.

Still, the flipside of this is that Room 237 kind of ably conjures up the isolation and disorientation of The Shining itself, abetted by a great score from Jonathan Snipes and William Huston. It’s also just a good deal of fun, in its own wonky, slurry way. Powered by a deep and abiding affection for both The Shining and Kubrick in general, Room 237 is an amuse-bouche of remix culture — a very specific film that is also about the dance of intention and interpretation in art. In his scrupulous avoidance of debunking, it’s clear that Ascher’s aim, essentially, is to throw a spotlight on interpretive criticism and embrace, and underscore that the relationship between art, artist and the culture at large is a complex one, with frequently hazy boundaries. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (IFC Midnight, unrated, 104 minutes)

A winning little dramedy hung chiefly on the solid peg of Lou Taylor Pucci‘s lead performance, The Story of Luke offers up an experiential snapshot of adult autism without descending into cloying sentimentality or didactic moralizing. Written and helmed by first-time feature director Alonso Mayo, the movie is mostly a comedy, but one that largely eschews outlandishness and never drifts too far from recognizable human feeling.



When his grandmother dies and his senile grandfather (Kenneth Welsh) is no longer able to care for him, 25-year-old Luke (Pucci) is taken in by his Uncle Paul and Aunt Cindy (Cary Elwes and Kristin Bauer), in a move that further stresses their already strained marriage. His cousins (Tyler Stentiford, Mackenzie Munro) are fairly welcoming, but the autistic Luke is thrown by all the sudden change. He knows he needs to grow up (“I can’t watch cooking shows for the rest of my life — I want to screw”), but he’s uncertain of how.

Taking some advice from his grandfather, Luke heads to a temp agency and quickly becomes enamored with Maria (Sabryn Rock) — or more specifically, her breasts. Placed in the mailroom at a nondescript company, Luke makes an unlikely friend in the boss’ son, the virulently antisocial Zack (Seth Green), who is also not “neuro-typical,” but comes around to Luke’s attention to detail. Zack decides to share his special proprietary invention — a computer program that reads and responds to the facial expressions of those with autistic-spectrum disorders (“I programmed her to be a bitch because that’s what you’re up against”), in order to help coach and nudge them toward “normal.” Nominal hijinks ensue, of course, as Luke screws up the courage to ask out Maria, but the movie also spends an equal amount of time showing both Luke and his “new” family feeling their way through a grander socialization with one another.

With his fey, sing-song voice and buttoned-up fashion, Pucci delivers an indelible performance that doesn’t cheat on the anxiety Luke feels — which swells considerably when considering the abandonment of his mother. If Green, angry and wound up, plays much more of a type, their interactions are still amusing, and give The Story of Luke a fresh, off-kilter comedic vibe that one doesn’t expect to see in a story that could easily be a lot more staid, and typically plotted.

Some may scoff at this mixture of tones, but since Mayo is resolutely true to Luke’s wobbly steps toward independence, it mostly works. Though it’s not as much of a relationship two-hander, The Story of Luke bears some characteristics in common with Max Mayer’s Adam, starring Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne. Even though that film took a young man with Asperger’s Syndrome as its protagonist, both movies are robustly invested in an exploration of the often bewildering gaps in social recognition and body language between “NTs,” or neuro-typicals, and those with less functional social skill sets.

An engaging character study about a differently-wired guy learning to navigate the already choppy waters of young adulthood, The Story of Luke is a sweetnaturedly pleasant and optimistic coming-of-age tale that highlights much that we share, amidst all our differences. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. The Story of Luke opens in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Music Hall, but in addition to its nationwide theatrical engagements the film is also available on VOD. For more information, click here to visit its website. (Gravitas Ventures, unrated, 95 minutes)

Playing like a M.I.A. song come to life, Sally El Hosaini’s British import My Brother the Devil transcends the gangland melodrama of its roots courtesy of a convincingly sketched setting, and rich veins of class identity, faith, political belief and sexual identity, all of which jostle and compete with the main narrative plotlines for attention.



In the ethnically mixed and socioeconomically depressed Hackney neighborhood of London, teenager Mo (Fady Elsayed, above left) idolizes his charismatic older brother Rashid (James Floyd, above right), a low-level drug peddler. The death of a friend, however, triggers a rising reticence in Rashid about the direction (or lack thereof) of his life. After forging a bond with photographer Sayyid (Said Taghmaoui), Rashid begins to envision making enough money to stake a “legit” life — possibly for his girlfriend Vanessa (Elarica Gallacher), but definitely for his brother and struggling, Egyptian-born parents. Old turf wars and unsettled accounts with a rival gang leader, Demon (Leemore Marrett, Jr.), however, seemingly foreclose an easy exit, while at the same time Mo starts doing drug runs behind his brother’s back.

There’s a certain feeling of laid-track narrative that hangs over My Brother the Devil, at least when it’s peddling the siren song of gang life to Mo. This story — enthralled, impressionable youngster caught up in the psychological undertow of a n’er-do-well older sibling — is very familiar, and that fact, combined with El Hosaini’s deliberate pacing, has one feeling every one of the movie’s first 20 or 30 minutes double-time, no matter the clarity of its observance.

But a funny thing happens on the way toward tedium, as My Brother the Devil starts vacuuming up new story strands and buoying details like a Hoover. El Hosaini workshopped the movie at three different Sundance Institute labs (Middle Eastern, Screenwriting and Directing), and the benefits of those continual, disparate fine tooth combings benefit the material, particularly in its attention to detail. My Brother the Devil feels rooted and real, and less concerned with chest-thumping braggadocio than other gang flicks. The hoods in El Hosaini’s world have lives and feelings outside the parameters of any of their illegal actions; they at one point argue about bacon, and a charge of terrorism is brought up as a feint — a cover for something a distraught Mo deems much worse.

Director of photography David Raedeker does a wonderful job of capturing this urban landscape with a simple, unshowy poetry, and the lead performances here are rich and full bodied. My Brother the Devil covers some familiar ground, it’s true, but El Hosaini locates the commingled struggle and quiet beauty of the quotidian, where opportunity and hope are frequently too little nourished. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Paladin/108Media, R, 111 minutes)