Closer

Mike Nichol’s new film Closer is infused with this type of magical chemistry, and at times the potency of the alchemic mix threatens to make its world teeter off balance. With a screenplay by Patrick Marber, adapted from his play of the same name, the picture is a tone poem to both love and its darker side. Dan (Jude Law), an obituary writer and aspiring novelist, shares a moment of charged visual contact with a beautiful girl as he makes his way to work in London one day. Her name is Alice (Natalie Portman)—a hip, self-assured New Yorker who has just arrived in the city. An accident while crossing the street puts her in the hospital and Dan, although still a stranger to her, remains close by to offer help. Fast-forward to a few years later. Alice and Dan are together in the romance that seemed destined from their first gaze. Dan, at a photo shoot for the jacket of his soon-to-be-released novel, meets the stunning photographer Anna (Julia Roberts), and mutual attraction quickly turns into a brief moment of indiscretion. An internet sex joke gone awry ultimately has unintended effects as Anna meets and begins to fall in love with Larry (Clive Owen), a dermatologist possessing—being euphemistic here—an avaricious sexual appetite. The lovers occupy a universe where passion reigns over reason and disorder is inevitable; each greedily takes what he or she momentarily desires while delivering perfectly placed words intended to cause maximum hurt to another as they all struggle to understand what it means to love. The actors are also all indebted to Marber for his witty and overall intelligent script, which makes a terrific transition from the stage to the screen. Despite their clearly egregious ways, Nichols’ camera shoots his handsome couples with tremendous affection. His tight close-ups put you right in the moment so that you can almost feel the heat emanating from the skin of their passion-filled bodies. His trademark zoom shots, while they still precisely cut through space, now move with the grace of an aged master. Like a Cartier-Bresson photograph, they reveal “the decisive moment” during which the emotions that threaten to sweep away the characters instantaneously come together. (TAO)

Finding Neverland

In his newest film, director Marc Forster makes a drastic break from his previous work, Monster’s Ball. Johnny Depp plays James “J.M.” Barrie, in the process of writing his masterwork Peter Pan. Like most of Depp’s characters, Barrie is more than a little strange. His last play was a flop; his marriage has deteriorated to the point that he and his wife (played by Radha Mitchell) barely speak to one another; and, perhaps unsurprisingly, he prefers the company of his dog and his own imagination to most of his peers. This all changes, however, when he meets a family of muses in the park one afternoon. Barrie quickly befriends Sylvia Llewelyn Davies—played with daring and grace by Kate Winslet—and her four sons Michael, Jack, George and Peter to their mutual benefit; Barrie needs them for inspiration and to inject some warmth into what was rapidly becoming a hollow life and they need him to help them get over the recent death of Sylvia’s husband, the boys’ father. Occasionally, the tone can be a little too sweet and sentimental: this is not a movie for the hard of heart. However, like Peter Pan says, if you really believe, at times the movie feels like its flying. (SNJ)

I Heart Huckabees

Albert is unhappy and he isn’t sure why. Sadly, we never care. The root of Albert’s malaise, I think, is that he has sold out. He has entered into a partnership with Huckabees, a chain of K-Mart-like stores, to throw some muscle behind his coalition to save a local wetland. Russell’s sly appropriation of American corporate-speak provide the best moments in the Huckabees script: therapy would be unbecoming for a corporate executive, so Brad rationalizes his sessions with “existential therapists” by insisting they are “pro-active and action-oriented.” While all of the characters in Huckabees seem primed to arc from ironic distance to grand, tragic catharsis, Jude Law alone provides the emotional proximity the film coaxes you into longing for and then so cruelly denies. (DBR)

The Incredibles

Pixar, the ingenious powerhouses of animation that brought the world personified toys, monsters and phosphorescent fish, has taken on a PG-rated action adventure for its latest premise: the story of an average superhero family.In his glory days, Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson) was known to the world as Mr. Incredible, a superhero capable of foiling a bank robbery, stopping a runaway locomotive and coaxing a kitten down from a tree all on the way to his wedding. Segue to fifteen years later and Mr. Incredible and his wife Helen, formerly known as Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), and their three children are attempting to live a normal suburban life under the Witness Protection Program. Bob juggles a potbelly and a mind-numbing job as an insurance claims specialist while longing for the old days; Helen is not willing to give up the peaceful life they have earned. Everything changes when Bob receives a communiqué calling for Mr. Incredible’s help in a top-secret mission on a mysterious island. The mission eventually pulls the entire Incredibles family into a battle to save the world from their nemesis, Syndrome (Jason Lee). Writer-director Brad Bird (Iron Giant, The Simpsons), who serves triple duty as the voice of the temperamental superhero fashion designer Edna Mode, has created a film that skillfully blends the excitement of a superhero movie with a carefully-measured dose of family film sensitivity. (JYZ)

The Motorcycle Diaries

The Guevara characterized in Walter Salles’ seductive new film The Motorcycle Diaries is a far cry from the iconic figure, sporting beard and beret, found in so many dorm rooms and poetry lounges. This is Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (Gael García Bernal) in his mid-20s, before he was Che. The film picks up Guevara’s life in 1951 as he embarks with his compatriot, Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna) on his travels—powered, initially, by the namesake motorcycle, of course—bound for the southern tip of South America. He is a far more accessible figure, and his journey radiates a certain lost-soul aura to which even a hardened capitalist could relate. (ZMS)

National Treasure

National Treasure is about a third-generation treasure hunter searching for the greatest treasure the world has ever known, ever. Nicholas Cage, who seems to have convinced himself that he’s a modern day Juan Ponce De Leon, runs around like an idiot, examining money like a McDonald’s cashier dubious about a customer paying for an item on the dollar menu with a $10 bill. At one point in the film, Cage’s sidekick, a first generation treasure hunter played by Justin Bartha—I know what you’re thinking: sooooo JV—cracks an ironic smile and asks his fellow treasure hunters, “Who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?” Unbeknownst to the trusty helper Bartha, his query actually captures the essence of the burden placed on the spectator in seeing this half-assed movie. Who in fact wants to go down this creepy tunnel of a movie? I don’t think you do. Personally, I wish I had not. The movie is lacking something. It definitely was not Jon Voight, the consummate professional, who came through with a performance that rivals the one he turned in for The Karate Dog as his personal best in 2004. Maybe what it lacked was a good script, decent plot, and solid acting. Step it up, Jerry. (TBB)

Overnight

This documentary follows the rise and fall of Troy Duffy, a Bostonian bartender who makes an astonishing, life-changing deal with Miramax Films. Miramax is so impressed with Troy’s screenplay, The Boondock Saints, that they offer Troy the chance to direct the film with a huge budget and create its soundtrack using music performed by his band. Sitting on top of the world, Troy manages to commit blunder after blunder, mishandling negotiations and alienating his supporters. He eventually loses his deal with Miramax and becomes a pariah in Hollywood. The movie’s biggest strength is Troy Duffy’s cinematic personality. He alternates between bouts of cruel anger and drunken happiness, while maintaining a deathless overconfident holier-than-thou attitude that catalyzes his downfall. Despite his irritating tendency to say the wrong thing to just about everyone, there are elements of appealing humanity in Troy. There is something gripping about his irate desperation and something frightening about the ease with which Troy evolves from confident and optimistic bartender to paranoid resentful tyrant. The filmmakers have been handed a fascinating fable and they make good use of their material. They choose scenes that effectively highlight the quicksilver personality of Troy; moreover, they use just the right dose of other characters’ appearances to temper Troy’s intensity and provide outside perspective. Other than minor editing gripes, this movie is a wonderfully raw portrayal of the dangers of success and self-delusion. (DHMP)

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