Drama

Lion

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Lion
  • IMDb: link

LionOnly two films in 2016 offered a profound emotional reaction that forced me to tears. The first was a sobering documentary of an athlete struggling with the onset of an incurable and debilitating disease. Like Gleason, Lion has its basis in fact as director Garth Davis‘ film dramatizes the truth story of Saroo Brierley (Dev Patel) and his long journey to find home.

Offering us two films for the price of one, Davis expertly balances two threads set in different locales with completely different casts. This is no easy task, yet the film weaves both together into a compelling narrative about a sense of self, home, and place in the world.

Starting in the country outside of Calcutta, we meet a young Saroo (Sunny Pawar) and his older brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate). Separated in the city from Guddu, Sarro narrowly escapes a terrible fate on the streets. Even with the help of authorities, the five-year-old can’t find his way back home and is eventually adopted by an Australian couple (David Wenham and Nicole Kidman) to be raised thousands of miles from his home.

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The Most Overrated Movie of 2016

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Jackie
  • IMDb: link

Jackie movie reviewThe goal of a biopic is to offer insight into its subject, to explore the life of an individual and share something new or interesting about its central character. By that definition Jackie is a complete failure. The only takeaway from director Pablo Larraín‘s film is that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was upset by the assassination of her husband. That’s hardly worth the price of admission (let alone the film’s $9,000,000 budget). Natalie Portman may shine in the role, but to what purpose?

Oscar-bait, the film is notable only for its recreation of the time period and for Portman’s peformance. The problem with the former is the glamour is wasted as window dressing on a film without a reason to exist (other than grab Portman some statuettes). The problem with the later is Portman’s performance is undercut by both a questionable accent and Noah Oppenheim‘s script which is never sure who Jackie was, as it jumps from portraying a vapid creature out of touch with reality (as seen in the flashbacks) to a woman of cunning and guile completely controlling an interview with a journalist (Billy Crudup) looking to find the real Mrs. Kennedy.

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Manchester by the Sea

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Manchester by the Sea
  • IMDb: link

Manchester by the SeaWritten and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea is a simple story that provides surprising depth. Following the death of his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler), the less-reliable Lee (Casey Affleck) is given custody of his Joe’s teenage son Patrick (Lucas Hedges) forcing him to leave his dreary life in Boston and return to the home he abandoned in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts years before.

Affleck and Lonergan thread a difficult needle here as Lee comes off as immediately unlikable, unreliable, and by all accounts the worst choice to be his nephew’s guardian, while still leaving the door open for our opinion to change as we learn more about his troubled past. It’s a good role for Affleck who knows just how to play the moody loneliness of the character while foreshadowing that there’s something far more complex going on with Lee under the surface. A stark contrast to his mopey uncle, Hedges is is a charismatic lightning bolt everyone seems to gravitate to (such as his multiple girlfriends who include Kara Hayward and Anna Baryshnikov). More together than Lee, most of the time it’s a little unclear who is taking care of who following his father’s death.

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Loving

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Loving
  • IMDb: link

LovingLove is color blind, except in the state of Virginia. Based on the true story of Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred Loving (Ruth Negga), Loving follows the events which led to the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia after the Lovings were expelled from the state under threat of prison for violating the state’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited interracial cohabitation and marriage.

Leaving the legal maneuverings, motions, and trial to occur largely off-screen, instead writer/director Jeff Nichols focuses the film on Richard and Mildred. Despite a world that told them loving each other was wrong, the pair found each other and stood by each other in the years where hatred and bigotry did their best to destroy their love. The film’s title perfectly summarizes the pair’s relationship. Not out to change the world, simply understanding that their love couldn’t be wrong, their struggle is both emotional and inspirational. With so much of the film riding on their shoulders, Negga and Edgerton are terrific on-screen together in low-key but emotion-packed performances. It’s impossible not to root for them and it makes you sad for any world which would try to keep them apart.

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Moonlight

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Moonlight
  • IMDb: link

MoonlightMoonlight follows the story of a single character from childhood to adulthood while struggling to find his place in the world. Told in three acts (with a different actor playing the role, and being referred to by a different name) writer/director Barry Jenkins‘ tale follows Little’s (Alex Hibbert) journey from a shy kid, to a teenage Chiron (Ashton Sanders) struggling to deal with his sexuality (and his schoolmates hatred of him), to a hardened drug dealer (Trevante Rhodes) given an unexpected chance to find something he lost years ago.

All three of the leads work well, although the fact that we are getting used to a different actor also responding to a different name does take some getting used to during the movie’s two big time jumps.

And the supporting cast is strengthen by the likes of Naomie Harris as our protagonist’s abusive mother, Mahershala Ali and Janelle Monáe as a couple who step in to try and help the boy, and Jharrel Jerome as the teenager responsible for giving Chrion the best and worst moments of his life.

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