Only God Forgives (2013 Cannes review)
The beauty of every frame of Only God Forgives—the striking compositions, the vivid colors—is so exceptional that it mostly offsets the questionable creative decisions that go on within that frame. Director Nicolas Winding Refn’s follow-up film to Drive is even bolder in its design, mixing his trademark violence with an almost austere, dreamlike quality that positions this revenge thriller as something of a revenge tone poem. The characters never become more than well-positioned furniture in those frames, but the movie’s quite gorgeous in its own limited way.... read more
Found in: Movies, ReviewsSarah Prefers to Run (2013 Cannes review)
In the 1980s, Nike did a promotional campaign for their jogging shoes called “There Is No Finish Line.” The idea behind the campaign was that, for the serious runner, the process of going out every day to jog wasn’t about trophies—it was about the euphoric, perhaps even spiritual experience of leaving everything else in your life behind and just being in tune with the feeling of your body cutting through the air. That tag line might have just been a way for Nike to sell more shoes, but for the heroine of Sarah Prefers to Run, that philosophy is gospel.... read more
Found in: Movies, ReviewsBastards (2013 Cannes review)
Filmmaker Claire Denis didn’t name her new movie Bastards glibly. It’s hard to remember a film in recent times that’s been populated with so many disreputable, miserable or simply unpleasant characters. You’ll never quite warm up to any of them, but if you get on this neo-noir’s wavelength, you may find yourself loving them anyway. They’re bastards, all right, but they’re bastards through and through.... read more
Found in: Movies, ReviewsBehind the Candelabra (2013 Cannes review)
At first blush, the main draw of Behind the Candelabra would seem to be its camp appeal: a true-life love story between a humble aspiring veterinarian and Liberace, that icon of kitsch and knowing excess. And while that element exists in director Steven Soderbergh’s film, what resonates more strongly is the difficulty in falling in love with someone famous. That person may love you back sincerely, but fame always gets in the way. That’s not a particularly revelatory idea, but Soderbergh and his cast at least find a lively way to say it one more time.... read more
Found in: Movies, ReviewsA Touch of Sin (2013 Cannes review)
The latest film from Chinese director Jia Zhangke would appear to be a departure from his previous acclaimed work. But on closer inspection, his particular cinematic DNA has been perfectly preserved. It’s just that, this time, there’s a lot more bloodshed than we’ve come to expect from him.... read more
Found in: Movies, ReviewsJimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) (2013 Cannes review)
Easier to respect than embrace, Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) tells its true-life story with understatement and features sturdy performances from Benicio del Toro and Mathieu Amalric. But this somewhat clinical look at the unlikely therapy sessions that took place between a French anthropologist and a traumatized Native American war veteran in 1947 feels hemmed in by its approach. You sense that French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin wants to avoid the feel-good clichés associated with such a movie, but his alternative is tasteful but also a little too muted.... read more
Found in: Movies, ReviewsLike Father, Like Son (2013 Cannes review)
Like Father, Like Son, the latest bittersweet drama from Japanese writer-director Kore-eda Hirokazu, may be utterly conventional in some ways, but its surging emotional power eventually proves too overwhelming to deny. We probably don’t need another film about a workaholic father who learns to stop and smell the roses, but when it’s handled as effortlessly as Kore-eda does here, you remember that storytelling conventions exist for a reason: In the right hands, they can still work wonderfully.... read more
Found in: Movies, ReviewsYoung & Beautiful (2013 Cannes review)
When we first meet Isabelle (Marine Vacth), she doesn’t seem much different than most 16-year-olds. Yes, she’s strikingly beautiful in a bikini, but the adolescent uncertainty and hormonal urges are quite recognizable and universal. Once this French girl loses her virginity to an older German guy, however, her behavior changes in ways that neither we nor anyone close to her could have imagined.... read more
Found in: Movies, ReviewsThe Past (2013 Cannes review)
One of the constant challenges for screenwriters is trying to condense the complexity of human beings into an accessible feature-length presentation. In real life, it can take months—maybe years, maybe never—to fully understand another person. (And that’s if we’re lucky enough to even figure out ourselves.) Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi is restrained by the same obstacles that other filmmakers are, but somehow he seems capable of developing incredibly complex and nuanced characters. They’re layers upon layers, contradictory and mysterious, still revealing things about themselves even once we think we have a bead on them.... read more
Found in: Movies, ReviewsThe Bling Ring (2013 Cannes review)
When making a film based on actual crimes, there’s a natural inclination to want to explain precisely what drove the perpetrators to commit their deeds. But in the case of The Bling Ring, a movie inspired by a few high school kids’ string of robberies at celebrities’ homes in the late 2000s, writer-director Sofia Coppola’s rationale for their crimes is quite simple: They did it because they were extraordinarily shallow and materialistic. It’s an intriguing notion, but one wishes Coppola wouldn’t pound on this single point for her movie’s entire running time.... read more
Found in: Movies, Reviews
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