LAFF 2015: INFINITELY POLAR BEAR

A scene from Infinitely Polar Bear.

Boston blues

By Ed Rampell

Emmy-nominated screenwriter Maya Forbes’ Infinitely Polar Bear marks an auspicious directorial debut. This intensely personal film, which is reminiscent of Francois Truffaut and Richard Linklater’s movies about childhood, recreates Forbes’ troubled Boston girlhood during the 1970s. Indeed, Forbes’ own daughter, Imogene Wolodarsky, plays Amelia Stuart, who is mostly raised by her manic depressive father Cameron Stuart (Mark Ruffalo) after her mother, Maggie Stuart (Zoe Saldana), leaves the family to pursue a master’s degree in Manhattan in this heartfelt, touching and often humorous feature.

Somehow Imogene and her sister Faith (the delightful Ashley Aufderheide, the central casting version of an adorable biracial child) must cope with being raised by a mentally ill parent, while mom strives to support the family by advancing herself through higher education. Cameron is at the center of the saga, which is often ruled by his moods, his highs and lows. Although a Boston blueblood from a privileged background, these Brahmins have more or less cut the erratic Cam off from the family fortune. To tell you the truth, he actually is a loving, attentive (if decidedly unconventional) dad and the added responsibility of raising his daughters as a solo parent while Maggie studies in New York seems to somewhat ground him.

As the oft exasperating Cam, Ruffalo turns in a poignant performance. However, Infinitely Polar Bear (the term Cam’s children use for his bipolar condition) never fully explains why the beautiful, ambitious Maggie would marry a n’er-do-well loser like Cam, who spent their entire first date regaling Maggie with stories about his mental illness. What did she miss in this conversation?

As a female the sultry Saldana is far more attractive than Ruffalo is as a male, so why she wed this guy who becomes, at one point, institutionalized remains pretty much a mystery. Let alone why she had two children with this total flake (albeit a sometimes lovable one). One half suspects that Maggie attends a far away graduate school to get away from Cam as much as because she realizes that she must receive an advanced degree so she can provide for her kids (all “three” of them). I didn’t buy their relationship; perhaps this lapse in credulity is because Infinitely Polar Bear is told from a daughter’s point of view, and it may be too difficult and painful to fully pry into and comprehend one’s own parents’ tumultuous private lives.

Another shortfall is how little Infinitely Polar Bear deals with the fact that the couple is multi-racial and their children are biracial. As the massacre in Charleston and a string of police/vigilante killings of blacks demonstrate, racism is very much alive and un-well, still a dominant feature of American life. Indeed, in writing about U.S. history one could justifiably paraphrase Marx and Engel’s dictum on class in chapter 1 of The Communist Manifesto by proclaiming: “The history of all hitherto existing American society has been the history of race struggles.” If that is still true in 2015 USA, imagine how much truer it must have been in 1970s Boston, when the city was gripped with convulsions over busing in order to desegregate schools. But Infinitely Polar Bear largely ignores and glosses over the issues of race and of two black children being raised largely by a very Caucasian father.

In a canny, clever bit of casting, Keir Dullea plays Cam’s father Murray Stuart in a revealing cameo. Before Dullea attained fame as the astronaut who tangles with the murderous computer HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dullea depicted the eponymous David, a mentally ill young man who finds love with another troubled youth in 1962’s, David and Lisa.

Despite its flaws Infinitely Polar Bear is well worth seeing by moviegoers who cherish character-driven indies. This critic looks forward to Maya Forbes’ future features.

Infinitely Polar Bear also opens in theaters, tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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FILM REVIEW: FOXCATCHER

A scene from Foxcatcher.

Chemical ro(am)Mance

 

By John Esther

 

In 1996 recluse millionaire madman John du Pont assassinated a man who was arguably the greatest American wrestler ever. It was not supposed to happen. After all, du Pont invited the wrestling extraordinaire brothers Dave and Mark Schultz to come to du Point’s Foxcatcher estate to create a great American wrestling team. Great things were supposed to be accomplished, and sometimes they were. But wrestling on the mat and wrestling with one’s own and another’s psyche are two different phenomena – yet not necessarily distinct.

 

Inspired by the events leading up to the senseless murder, director Bennett Miller (Capote; Moneyball) and company bring forth a plethora of information, detail and skill in order to recreate the “truth” about those involved in Foxcatcher.

 

A seemingly nobody in working-class Wisconsin, Olympic Gold winner Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) is training for the upcoming world wrestling championships. An Olympic champion reduced to living hand to mouth in near-poverty squalor, Mark is a loner barely recognized by his fellow citizens. His existence would be essentially ephemeral if it were not for his older brother, Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo). While hardly living the grand life, Dave does have a wife (Sienna Miller) and two kids, a steady job, and is on a regular relationship with USA Wrestling (USAW).

 

In a highly memorable scene, Foxcather precisely and aggressively establishes the relationship between the two brothers during their first encounter in the film.

 

Then, without warning, Mark’s seemingly bleak existence is disrupted by a call from a man calling on behalf of a man from one of the richest and most powerful American families since America’s Civil War.

 

Like a dream he never had coming true, Mark is lifted out of his dismal apartment and onto the 800-acre du Pont estate located in the Philadelphia suburbs. His benefactor, John du Pont (Steve Carell) a man of many interests, influences and eccentricities, wants to build a great American wrestling team. (We are talking authentic, athletic, amateur wrestling here, not the homoerotic, choreographed, steroid-fueled show known as professional wrestling.)

 

With relish and determination, the two start to build a formidable force. Training, meals and salaries are provided to Mark and the rest of wrestling team. Meanwhile, Dave remains back in Wisconsin, happy to do what he is doing.

 

As the training continues, Mark and du Pont begin to form a sort of son-father relationship. As someone who lived without his father and under his brother’s wings growing up, Mark has found a father surrogate in du Pont. Du Pont never had much of a father either.

 

Then drugs and alcohol enter the mix. The paternalistic dynamic becomes one of friendship, perhaps the only real one du Pont ever had. Well, his mother, Jean du Pont (Vanessa Redgrave), did buy her son a friend many years ago.

 

However, that friendship becomes restrained, too. Mark lashes out. John, with vastly superior intellectual skills, responds by systematically dismantling Mark by seducing Dave and his family out to the estate.

 

Now the three are wrestling on the mat, plus with fears, egos and loyalty. Mark is overwhelmed; Dave wants to keep his brother from hurting himself or others; and “Eagle” John is a man who is used to getting what he wants. The results will not be pretty.

 

Winner of Best Director at Cannes Film Festival 2014, Miller and company recreate those tragic events without mawkishness or fear. Simply put, this is well-done filmmaking with some extraordinary performances. Tatum is allowed to tap his inner emotions while Carell is breaking his comedic mold by playing a tragically pathetic character far from his comically pathetic Michael Scott on The Office. Typical Carell fans should not expect to laugh at Carell in the usual manner. Du Pont may be a virgin, but it is not for laughs. For his part, Ruffalo is excellent in an understated performance; it is the kind of nuanced acting typically overlooked during awards groups by more obvious performances.

 

As far as Redgrave’s contribution goes, sure, she does her job; but there is not much for her to do. She is simply here to add a little gravitas, which is not necessary. Running at a quick 132-minutes, Foxcatcher is a story about two brothers, one with personal demons, attached to a man who was obviously confused, spoiled, and likely sexually frustrated (some say mentally ill), who met two interests/subjects who did not serve his needs and thus had to be dispensed with extreme prejudice. (To put it Hollywoody: The Fighter meets Snowpiercer.)

 

However, there is one positive post-trope here: a one-percenter did not get away with murder. Du Pont died in prison in 2010.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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FILM REVIEW: THE AVENGERS

A scene from The Avengers.

Comics con

By Don Simpson

The Avengers may not be a great film, but it is probably the best superhero film ever made -- which is not necessarily saying a lot.

Sure, there are a few exceptions, but even the best superhero films (X-Men, X2, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Night) have had their fatal flaws. First and foremost, no superhero film to date has been able to maintain a strong and coherent narrative for the duration of the film. The significance of the story always plays second-fiddle to special effects, action sequences and costumes. That is just the nature of the beast. As film history informs us, superhero films are supposed to be straightforward stories of good versus evil. Sure, sometimes the definitions of good and bad are a little blurred, and good does not always prevail (at least not in the short term), but there is always a superhero (or team of superheroes) and a villain (or a group of villains), and battle they must. The villains are never all that complex; in most cases they just want to control the world or destroy it, other times they are just good old fashioned nut jobs.

The Avengers plot is not much better. If anything, the plots of X-Men and X2 are stronger. Oh, no! Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), wants to bring the world to its knees with an alien army! Who can save the world? The Avengers! So, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) rallies his team of misfits together...and the rest is history. Luckily for writer-director Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse), several of The Avengers origins stories have already been theatrically released so no backstory is necessary for the superheroes. Even the two Avengers who were deemed not worthy of origins stories -- Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) -- only get a couple lines of expository dialogue to explain their pasts.

So with a half-assed plot, and no character development, Whedon, one of the true masters of witty, snarky, self-referential dialogue, plays to his strengths and saturates the script with smart ass dialogue. In turn, there is no point in The Avengers where the film takes itself seriously -- which is not such a bad thing. Working with superheroes like Thor, who protects the world with his giant hammer (to quote Captain Hammer from Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: “the hammer is my penis”), or Captain America (Chris Evans), who protects the world with a shield (okay, I admit it, I’m lacking a sexual metaphor for this guy), what is to be taken seriously? Then, there is Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) who is as cocksure as superheroes come and the not-so-jolly green giant with severe anger management issues, The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Essentially, Whedon uses The Avengers as a playground to allow the Avengers free reign to mock each other, and he does this in such a way to be humorous but not piss off loyal fans of the source material.

Speaking of fans, if you are a fan of Whedon’s television work, the Avengers are culled directly from the Whedonverse. Whedon has made a career of developing characters who must come to terms with their superhuman powers. Then they are matched up against other superhuman characters. Then Whedon lets them fight (physically or verbally) out their differences until they begrudgingly join forces in an apocalyptic battle against a seemingly undefeatable enemy. In most cases, there is a higher power who is revealed to be playing puppet master, controlling the fate of the world (usually unbeknown to the protagonists).

On a side note, there is a much stronger Whedon screenplay currently in multiplexes that is far more worthy of your attention: Cabin in the Woods. Unlike The Avengers’ watered-down plot (which we can probably chalk up to Disney keeping Whedon on a short leash), the narrative complexities of Cabin in the Woods’ plot reaches nearly inexplicable levels. Cabin in the Woods proves that genre filmmaking can push the intellectual limits of the audience, whereas The Avengers is just another Hollywood joyride.

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