An email from the French Embassy’s Los Angeles Film and TV Office landed in my inbox this morning, with an invitation to a screening of Jacques Doillon’s Ponette… held on March 6. Further ignoring the fact that it was in Valencia, I really wish this invite had arrived, you know, in advance of the actual screening, since Doillon was there in person.
An arresting bereavement drama refracted through the eyes of a little girl, this film is an absolute heartbreaker, and features one of if not the most affecting child performance I’ve ever seen. Victoire Thivisol (look at that face!) plays 4-year-old Ponette, who must come to terms with grief following the death of her mother in a car accident. She gets little sympathy and support from her atheistic father, who just dumps her with her aunt while, wrapped up in his own denial and anger, he goes back to work. Ponette’s aunt and her young friends confuse her with a mixture of religion and fantasy, to the point she ends up believing that her mother will soon be coming back to visit her.
It’s been years since I’ve seen the movie, and though I don’t at all doubt its staying power, I do ponder whether this is a case of actual performance, or just deeply superb, marionette strings manipulation-as-direction. Thivisol won the Best Actress Award at the 1996 Venice Film Festival, but four years old is awfully young, and the movie, largely in the contrast drawn between Ponette and her father, has a lot of substance to say about so-called truths that crumble into uncertainties when adults are called upon to try to explain them to children. It’s for this reason that I would have loved to talk to Doillon.
One of the most celebrated 19th century romance novels of all time,
and still a staple of many high school reading curricula, Wuthering Heights — or Withering Heights, as a kid in my class once knew it — is also frequently tackled for adaptation on stage and screen, in ways that often don’t do much justice to the original source material. New to DVD, Masterpiece Theatre’s presentation thankfully gets right Emily Brontë’s classic love story, in ways both large and small.
Starring Tom Hardy (The Virgin Queen, RocknRolla) as Heathcliff and newcomer Charlotte Riley as Cathy, this intense, two-and-a-half-hour production will have romantics swooning. As adapted by Peter Bowker and directed by Coky Giedroyc, it’s a nicely mounted, attractively costumed and photographed production, and the lead performances both adequately capture the all-consuming nature of commingled lust and love. Set against the stark beauty of the English moor, the story, of course, centers around mysterious gypsy boy Heathcliff, who’s adopted by the well-to-do Earnshaw family. There, Heathcliff discovers his soulmate in the form of his stepsister, Cathy. She returns his passion, but Cathy also frets and fears over his future (the modern phrase would be “earnings potential,” I reckon), so much so that she marries another man for his wealth. Unable to have the love of his life, Heathcliff sets out to amass his own fortune, seeking to reclaim Cathy or bring vengeance and misery against anyone who comes between them. His actions eventually drive a heartbroken Cathy to an early grave, only further shattering Heathcliff’s heart.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Wuthering Heights comes to DVD on a region-one disc, presented in anamorphic widescreen. There are unfortunately no supplemental bonus features included here, which is a shame — even a brief, quickly slapped together talking-head-type biographical featurette on Brontë would have further shined a light on the material, and probably helped save at least one little kid out there somewhere from mangling the title. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. To order the DVD directly from WGBH Boston Video, meanwhile, phone (800) 949-8670 or click here. B+ (Movie) D+ (Disc)
It looks like John Krasinski’s Jarhead cameo paid off, since he’s starring opposite Maya Rudolph in Sam Mendes’ next film, Away We Go, the trailer of which is now online. It’s melancholic summer counter-programming (Focus Features, June 5, platforming), and talk about being of a piece with the depressed times — the movie tells the story of two expectant thirtysomethings trying to establish some sense of rootedness as they get ready to bring a kid into the world despite being gripped by ennui and panic at all the examples of stability, interpersonal and otherwise, around them. I’m sure bittersweet and quiet, to-scale uplift are the target, but there’s palpable pain here, and it seems like a match with the current zeitgeist. The trailer feels like the filmic equivalent of Bedlam’s “Harvest Moon,” something “true” and unfussy and muted, like Garden State and All the Real Girls, or like Junebug and The Great New Wonderful wanted to be.
From the files of random disturbance, something discovered during research for a long-form piece I’m penning: wait a second, Karl Rove was born on Christmas?! Jesus Christ, indeed…
Happy-Go-Lucky, from writer-director Mike Leigh, unfolds in the British director’s signature improvisational style, whereby the script is whittled down into naturalistic shape via several weeks of intensive rehearsal, and collaboration between the actors and filmmaker. For some of Leigh’s movies that works well (Secrets and Lies), for others (Topsy-Turvy) not so much. Happy-Go-Lucky, thankfully, is much more a case of the former. An effervescent comedy that finds delightful friction in its indulgence of polar opposite personalities, the movie serves as a star-making vehicle for Sally Hawkins, who earned a Best Actress Golden Globe
Award for her joyful star turn as Poppy, a peppy,
irrepressibly free-spirited teacher with an infectious laugh and an
unshakably positive outlook on life.
Leigh’s Oscar-nominated screenplay centers around London school teacher Poppy, who approaches every day with an optimism and bubbly, rib-nudging joy that is absolutely unshakable… and also can be a bit annoying. When the bicycle she commutes to work on is stolen, Poppy simply signs up for driving lessons. Her squat, East End-bred teacher, Scott (Eddie Marsan), is a fuming, uptight cynic whose swallowed anger and simmering exasperation comes to a boil in a series of clench-jawed tutorials and hilariously inappropriate episodes of road rage. They are a terrible match, in every sense of the word, and the divide only deepens when Scott comes to bitterly regard a potential suitor in Poppy’s life. Is solemness a requisite for emotional maturation, a necessary component of functional adulthood? Poppy’s disdainful, pregnant sister seems to think so, but neither she, Scott, a fiery flamenco instructor nor a classroom bully can seemingly change this happy-go-lucky gal’s glass-half-full worldview.
While Poppy perhaps skirts the edge of annoyance as a character that we would want a part of our everyday lives in the real world, she’s also entirely recognizable, and real — her behavior stems and flows from rooted emotions, and makes sense scene to scene. In that regard, it doesn’t matter whether one really “likes” Poppy, only that they recognize in her struggles the very personal and proactive application of joy as a weapon — something to keep the weight of negative emotions at bay — as well as something that keeps her in a state of arrested development. As counterbalance, Marsan gives good, sputtering rage. And, thankfully, Leigh doesn’t push down hard on the life-affirming stuff. Joy may not be able to be contrived, but at the same time it’s true that mood influences surroundings, and Happy-Go-Lucky winningly showcases both maxims.
Housed on a single disc in a regular plastic Amaray case, Happy-Go-Lucky is presented in 2:35:1 widescreen with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. The DVD’s bonus features are anchored by a feature-length audio commentary track from Leigh, who is amiable and chatty, but not a prisoner to over-explanation. The vast majority of his thoughts are confined to the world of the film rather than its production, but Leigh also isn’t afraid to take a knee and let some silence speak for him, or simply pose questions as to possible different meanings/motivations of what’s unfolding on screen. Those who know and appreciate the filmmaker’s work will especially find reward in this track.
Running roughly 30 minutes, “Happy in Character” charts the making of the movie in more explicitly anecdotal, nuts-and-bolts fashion, with Leigh and the cast discussing the characters and story, and creation and winnowing process of the film; Leigh is his usual hyper-articulate self, and Hawkins especially comes off as a charmer here. There’s also a shorter, behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the film’s “studio on wheels,” since so many of Happy-Go-Lucky‘s crucial scenes take place in a car, and in actual London traffic. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; for an interview with Leigh, meanwhile, click here. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)
Just in advance of its nationwide theatrical bow, the Aero Theatre will host a special advance screening of Superbad director Greg Mottola’s Adventureland — a coming-of-age film drawn from his own young adult experiences — on Wednesday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m. Set in the summer of 1987, the film centers around recent college grad James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg, above left), who’s forced to take a lowly job at a local amusement park to make ends meet. Luckily for James, what should have been his worst summer ever turns into quite an adventure as he discovers love with his captivating co-worker Em (Kristen Stewart), and learns to loosen up.
The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for this movie, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM. For more information on Adventureland, which opens March 27 from Miramax, visit its web site by clicking here.
