Michael Winterbottom’s road movie stars Steve Coogan (as himself), who is assigned to review restaurants in the English countryside. The trip was supposed to be a romantic one with a girlfriend, but she dumped him, and his last-minute traveling companion is fellow comic Rob Brydon. The duo match wits and more importantly, impersonations. The banter is astonishingly sharp, urbane and funny.
It’s exciting and the special effects are masterful (though I miss Roddy McDowell and Kim Novak in ape makeup).
Two complaints. First, James Franco is not scientist material. He’s stoner and hiker, not thinker. Second, how the hell is San Francisco harboring more apes than Madagascar?
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A departure for Diablo Cody, who wrote Juno. While Juno was whipsmart and clever, it was often too much so, veering into the Aaron Sorkinland of “oh, what I would have liked to have said.”
Young Adult is more grounded and real. While the protagonist (Charlize Theron) is a prom queen frozen in the time of her glory, Cody does not use her for a series of comebacks and big rhetorical finishes or for being taken down a peg. Theron is as she was, returning to her home town to reign once more, and in the process, reclaim her high school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson). But there are no grudges to be fixed or comeuppances to be delivered. The queen is home, but her prior reign is largely in her mind, and the kingdom did not miss her.
In Jason Reitman’s hands, as always, the film is assured, alternately somber (Theron’s life in Minneapolis and her return to her strip mall dotted home town differ mainly in the fact that in the big city, she lives in a high rise, away from the masses) and awkward (the small town does not welcome Theron’s glamour; sports bars do not accommodate slinky and seductive). Theron and Patton Oswalt (as a crippled high school nerd who runs into Theron during her quest) shine, and their earnest interactions reveal Cody’s maturity as a writer.
One scene in particular comes to mind — they are drinking at a bar, and Oswalt sees some guys playing pool and he moans. I immediately figured, here we go. Old high school tormentors. But now he has the queen in his corner. But instead, a guy wheels over in his wheelchair, a cheery and upbeat disabled townie who Oswalt dislikes for being cheery and upbeat.
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Better than the first movie, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law have given their easy banter a deeper root, and the villain Moriarty (Jared Harris) is seductive and superior. You actually believe feel Holmes is over-matched. Best, Stephen Fry has been enlisted as Holmes’ older brother and his scenes are hilarious.
The plot is also interesting and intricate, developing with appropriate twists and turns, and the special effects (you can’t go wrong with an armaments factory) are dizzying.
Another Alexander Payne gem. I’m always heartened by a picture about family and relationships that is neither pat, cute and unreal, or so raw and uncompromising that you’re driven to awkward discomfort. George Clooney is more than believable as a father whose wife has an accident and is in a coma, having to deal with establishing relationships with his two daughters while also learning that his wife was having an affair. On top of these woes, Clooney is the trustee of a pristine piece of Hawaii, and his family naturally wants to sell to the highest bidder. So, no stress there.
All the characters ring true, from the wife’s grief-stricken and angry father (Robert Forster) to the rebellious daughter (Shailene Woodley) to his wife’s scared lover (Matthew Lillard) to his shattered wife (Judy Greer). Particularly strong is Nick Krause as Woodley’s boyfriend, who accompanies Woodley as she comes back from college to deal with the tragedy. He could have been ill-used as the clueless stoner/comedic relief, and while he is funny at moments, he’s also poignant, another burden Clooney has to carry, but perhaps the only one who can actually assist.
The film meanders a little, and it tests Clooney’s depth (plus audience credulity – what wife cheats on George Clooney?), but those are nits. This is a rich portrait.
An earnest political tale, not as serpentine as Advise and Consent and lacking the sense of humor of Primary Colors. It’s closer to The Best Man. That said, it could have used Gore Vidal’s involvement because the picture is dull, with dutiful performances by George Clooney as the flawed and dark presidential candidate; Phillip Seymour Hoffman as his “loyalty first” campaign manager; Paul Giamatti as the conniving rival campaign manager; and Jeffrey Wright as the oily senator who holds the key to the nomination. Based on a stage play, it feels stagey, but the biggest flaw is Ryan Gosling as the number two in Clooney’s camp who becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue.
Gosling is poorly written. On the one hand, he’s presented as whip-smart and an up-and-comer, but some of his missteps are so glaring as to be ridiculous. Note to self: when having to pay off the massive fee of $900 to take care of a problem, DO NOT USE PETTY CASH!
The plot is also a little too tidy (why is meeting with the rival campaign manager presented as the equivalent of a paid sexual tryst with a transvestite?) and sometimes, the perfect rebuttal is foregone for the weight of the message.
There’s also a political imbalance that is a little distracting. Christopher Orr nails it:
Alas, The Ides of March wears its ever-bleeding heart on its sleeve. As frontrunner Morris, Clooney is to Barack Obama as Martin Sheen was to Bill Clinton, an uncompromising embodiment of the liberal id. He waves his irreligiosity like a banner, vows that with a greener energy policy, “you don’t have to bomb anyone, you don’t have to invade anyone,” and publicly derides the gay-marriage debate as a “silly argument.” (He even gives the right answer—with the benefit of 23 years’ hindsight—to the historic Michael Dukakis death-penalty gotcha.) A war hero turned antiwar, Morris is Wesley Clarke crossed with Dennis Kucinich crossed with Robert Redford in The Candidate. It’s little wonder that from the film’s vantage point on the ideological rim, moderate Democrats are Machiavellian devils, and Republicans—I may be mistaken, but I don’t believe a single one appears onscreen throughout the entire course of the film—are an inconceivable evil looming on a distant horizon, like the White Walkers in Game of Thrones.
George Clooney took his run at McQueen in last years’ dull, arty The American. At least Clooney was old enough to play a weathered “man-with-no-name” zombie. This year, it is Ryan Gosling’s turn in Drive.
Dull, arty and ridiculous, the addition of a grating soundtrack, gratuitous and utterly pointless violence, and Gosling, who has sublimated his personality to play an automaton.
You see, he drives.
For a minute, one wonders if he is the lethal, charmless version of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.
No such luck.
The film is also marred by plot twists that make no sense. For example, a professional killer stalking Gosling in an elevator allows our hero to give his gal a loving, long kiss, during which he could have stabbed Gosling in the back. As a result of his inexplicably polite waiting, he gets his head stomped into a bloody pulp. Later, Gosling chases a career criminal onto the beach, said criminal being strangely unarmed, and then, said criminal attempts to escape — by sea.
Mix in scenes chosen for the picturesque, Brian Cranston phoning it in as the old codger who gets Gosling “in too deep”, and Albert Brooks as an offbeat heavy, and the entire endeavor seems forced and inauthentically hip.
I love small crime movies, particularly moody and elegant ones like Layer Cake or The Limey or The Way of the Gun or Sexy Beast.
Drive isn’t a third of any of those films.
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