Movie #10: Doubt (2008)

If the questions and themes that are addressed in John Patrick Shanley's DOUBT, the film adaptation of his multiple award-winning play, seem a little obvious, the beautiful cinematic quality with which DOUBT is filmed more than makes up for it. Here is an adaptation from the stage that manages to completely work as a film, and doesn't feel (like MAMMA MIA reviewed earlier) like a fish out of water.

Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is the new priest at the Catholic church. A self-admitted progressive, he smokes, takes sugar with his tea, and enjoys the use of a ball point pen. All the things that positively rankle Sister Aloysius's nerves. Meryl Streep at first seems like a caricature of all the Sunday School nuns who rap knuckles with rulers, but her mannerisms and archaic view of religious life come into sharp focus when Father Flynn's motives and actions pertaining to an alter boy are brought to life.

The acting is top-notch, but between Hoffman and Streep you wouldn't really expect any less. The surprise acting comes from Amy Adams, who uses her innocent, wide-eyed persona from JUNEBUG and ENCHANTED to different ends as the naive Sister James, caught between the enormous wills of Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius. And Viola Davis, as the mother of the alter boy, may only be in one scene, but that scene is so powerful and the twist of the knife that is her dual confession to Sister Aloysius so painful that her that's imparted so shocking that her performance may in fact be the most riveting in the whole film.

The other big surprise is Shanley's direction. His ability to take something from the stage and imbue it with the grace and movement necessary for a film is assured, and perhaps allowed him the ability to emphasize certain aspects that, in a play, would be difficult. Father Flynn gives three sermons during the course of DOUBT, but the second one, concerning gossip, is the only one where Shanley actually films the story being told, about a woman who gossips and is punished by having to tear open a down pillow and collect all the feathers that blow into the wind. Why this sermon, and not the first one? It's finally made clear in the climax of the confrontation between Streep and Davis, and Shanley sets up an overhead shot, looking down at Sister Aloysius, the wind blowing the dead leaves all around her, feathers to be picked up. There are other visual hints and images that recur throughout the film: the wind is constantly finding its way into their lives - blowing down branches that hit one nun, coming through the windows and scattering Sister Aloysius' papers. Father Flynn at one point is troubled as he walks the hallways of the school - the stained glass window of the Lord's eye seems to follow him, separated by the spindles of a staircase.

But perhaps the best trick Shanley manages in DOUBT is the way he expertly plays his audience to fall into the same trap his characters do. DOUBT is not about whether or not Father Flynn actually did the things Sister Aloysius accuses him of. It's about our human tendency towards certainty, towards assurance that we know what we know. When I watched DOUBT I was entirely certain as to whether or not Father Flynn did what he is accused of. But something happens near the end of the film that smashes through that certainty, and left me with doubt as to my assertion.

That in itself isn't the trick Shanley pulls off in DOUBT. At the very end of the film Sister Aloysius admits that doubt has crept into her as well, but what's amazing is that her certainty was the exact opposite of what mine, and I expect the audience's, was. It's a revelation, and her anguish at the end as she admits this to Sister James that stayed with me for days after watching the movie.

How DOUBT received nominations for all four of its principle actors as well as its screenplay but failed to get a Best Picture or Director nod is beyond me. Maybe the fact the play already won a Tony Award, a Pulitzer, and the Drama Desk award was enough. A shame, though, because this is definitely one of my Top 5 films of the year.

Movie #9: Let the Right One In (2008)

Our introduction to Oskar gives us everything we need to understand his character. The screen is black, but we can hear threats, disturbingly reminiscent of DELIVERANCE: "Squeal! You squeal!" It is the sound of anger, of fear unbottled as rage. But when we actually see Oskar, we are confronted with the truth: a scared, pale, almost feminine boy standing in his room in his underwear, stabbing repeatedly at the air and wishing it were the local bully at his school. It's the first of many beautifully unguarded moments that implicitly understand childhood and the tentative steps we take when we move into adolescence.

It's certainly not the traditional beginning to a vampire film, but then, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is anything but a traditional vampire film.

Directed with care and restraint by Tomas Alfredson and written by John Ajvide Lindqvist based on his novel, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN delicately captures the shy, innocent fumblings of friendship and first love for Oskar, who has been beaten down at age 12 by his life. His parents are divorced: his mother distracted, his father distant and possibly struggling with burgeoning feelings of his own. Oskar feels invisible, his paleness blending into the stark whiteness of Sweden, where the films takes place. The only one to pay him any mind is Conny, the school bully whom Oskar imagines stabbing in the beginning of the film.

That feeling of invisibility ends when he meets Eli, a dark shamble of hair and eyes large as saucers. She suddenly appears standing on the jungle gym outside Oskar's apartment complex. She's recently moved in next door, she explains. Their interactions late at night, outside, are poignant and really the heart of the movie. How does a 12-year old show his affection? Oskar gives Eli his Rubik's Cube after Eli shows him how to solve it. They learn Morse code so they can communicate with each other through the walls of the apartment. And for Eli, who has been twelve "for a while now," the questions of how to relate to Oskar is doubly confusing, which makes their repeated connections and their situation at the film's end wonderfully reached.

However, Alfredsen doesn't let you forget that this is also a film about a creature that subsists on the blood of the living, and without resorting to a more Westernized series of action set pieces he fills LET THE RIGHT ONE IN with a multitude of eerie moments: a figure scurrying up the side of the building, brief flashes of elongated tongues and faces that, for a split second, are infinitely older than at first imagined. Blood? Check, and lots of it. Sometimes with a quiet humor (a poodle and a bunch of cats get some good laughs) and sometimes for shock (the exquisite climactic "pool" scene), the movie never fails to surround itself in a shroud of winter that keeps everything in a suitably somber mood.

A quick note: both in print and online there are numerous attempt to compare LET THE RIGHT ONE IN to TWILIGHT, oftentimes asserting (one way or the other) that one is the "superior" vampire film. But that's a severe disservice: LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is simply one the best films of 2008.

It just also happens to be a vampire film.

Movie #8: Skinwalkers (2007)

How's this for a kick-ass opening?

A young boy is walking down the street with his dear old grandmother, on their way to pick up his mother at the local hardware store. They pause at the corner, and the grandmother looks up, alarm on her face. An eagle screams, passing just overhead and soaring across the street to a rugged, scruffy motorcycle type, who flexes his muscles and levels a murderous stare at the pair.

"We only want the boy," he says. The sweet grandmother reaches into her purse to pull out the largest pistol I have ever seen a grandmother carry. "Run, Matthew!" she cries as she starts firing. Another biker type appears and starts blasting. The mailman sees what's going on and cries out, grabbing a sawed-off shotgun from his mailbag as the bullets start flying everywhere.

SKINWALKERS doesn't start like that; you have to wade through an almost unwatchable 20 minutes before you get to this scene. But it should start like that - thrust us directly into the action to learn what's going on along with Matthew and his mother as their eyes are opened to a world of Skinwalkers: shape-changing werewolves at war with each other. The evil baddies, led by Caleb (Jason Behr looking, as others have noted, like the lead singer from a late 90s rock band), wish to kill Matthew because it is prophesied he is the one who will bring about their destruction by ending the curse that gives them their power at the change of the moon. On the side of right is Jonas (the always creepy but watchable Elias Koteas) and his extended family, who want Matthew to end the curse and give their kind the freedom of a normal life.

The problem with the first 20 minutes of the film is all of this is explained in the most banal way imaginable, using trite, bland storytelling like scrolling prologues and pages of useless exposition. Useless, because once the action starts we're put in the place of Matthew's mother (played by rising action hottie Rhona Mitra of DOOMSDAY) who has to quickly understand everything that's happening to her and her son anyway, which is an infinitely better way of moving the story along. Director James Issac revels in the B-movie feel of SKINWALKERS, and loads the film with tense moments and a bevy of twists and turns to keep the story from falling flat.

The werewolves fall more into the "Wolf-man" Universal Monsters look than THE HOWLING or the more recent DOG SOLDIERS, and credit fore that should be given to legendary FX man Stan Winston and his team, who had a hand in the production. They look descent for the budget, and Issac does a lot of lighting and film speed tricks to hide some of it. But SKINWALKERS, despite its supernatural leanings, is a solid B-movie action flick.

Just do yourself a favor and shut your TV off, fast-forward 20 minutes, turn back on and enjoy.

Movie #7: Mamma Mia (2008)

I feel a little bad writing this review. Not because I'm embarrassed I watched MAMMA MIA; I won't even use the excuse that it was my wife's idea to watch it. It was, but I could have easily said "no" and left it at that. I was interested, liked the cast, and don't really mind the music of ABBA, even if I can't say I'm much of a fan.

Oh, man. I am so not the target demographic for this film.

The basic premise is that Sophia, a young, vibrant and perfectly stereotypical Musical Girl^tm is about to married at her mother's idyllic hotel on the coast of Greece. She never knew who her father was, so after rummaging through her mother's diary she finds three potential candidates and secretly invites them all to her wedding. Hi-jinks ensue, all to the music of ABBA.

That's about it. There's some raunchy fun courtesy of Christine Baranski and Julie Walters, and it's slightly uncomfortable but strangely appealing to watch Meryl Streep sing and dance and basically act like she's 17 years old. But other than that MAMMA MIA is tired, proposterous in ways that echo better musicals without overcoming it, and even worse, a little boring. I suspect this would work much better in its Broadway incarnation than it does dressed up like a movie.

Movie #6: The Reader (2008)

Well written, well acted and executed with clarity and finesse, THE READER, based on the short novel by Bernard Schlink, is a solid piece of filmmaking that unfortunately suffers from being just that: a solid piece of filmmaking. It's a Volvo: solid, reliable, and gets you where you want to go, but not the type of ride you bring out to the weekend car show at the local Denny's.

Michael Berg is 15 when he meets Hanna, a much older woman who collects fares on the train in late 1950's Germany. Drawn together in a passionate affair for the summer, their lovemaking is intermingled with longer and longer bouts of Michael reading to Hanna. Why Hanna initiates this is uncertain, but as the summer unfolds it becomes apparent that the affair awakens yearnings and passions in both of them. The affair ends inexplicably, and Michael returns to his life, attending University and majoring in law. Now in his 20's, he crosses paths with Hanna again, this time as he observes a trial against a group of women accused of war crimes in WWII. Hanna is one of the accused, a Nazi prison guard at Auschwitz.

Director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter David Hare do a good job of moving the story along, jumping back and forth in time and using the adult Michael's (played by Ralph Fiennes) visit by his daughter as a framing device. Kate Winslet give another in a string of strong performances, having to both play across a number of years and garner the audience's support despite her crimes. But the standout performance is by David Kross as the young Michael Berg who, at 18, displays a masterful command of his emotions and abilities. Everything comes together just as it should, but besides Kross' performance THE READER refuses to stand out as anything other than a solid, strong film, which should be more than enough but, somehow, isn't.