A Passionless Rent and an Overstuffed Bee Season

Rent, the film adaptation of the popular 1996 Broadway musical, has finally arrived in theaters, courtesy of Columbia Pictures and Chris Columbus.The film features at least six of the original eight performers from the stage production. Somewhat surprisingly, most of the performers make the transition to film admirably. Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thomas are the two newcomers to the cast, and they deliver the most impressive performances. Dawson portrays Mimi, a dancer addicted to drugs; and Thomas portrays Joanne, a lesbian attorney.

The story centers around the lives of eight young adults struggling to make their way in New York City. The other racial ethnically diverse cast of characters includes Mark (Anthony Rapp), a documentary filmmaker whose girlfriend leaves him for a woman; Roger (Adam Pascal), a struggling songwriter who is grappling with his girlfriend’s suicide; Tom (Jesse Martin), a philosophy professor who is mugged at the beginning of the film; Angel, a drag queen who finds Tom after he’s mugged and then falls in love with him; and Benny (Taye Diggs), a former friend of the group who has recently married the landlord’s daughter and who now must collect rent money from tenants. The intersecting trials and tribulations of these characters are set against the backdrop of the crowded streets of New York and the presence of HIV/AIDS, which touches each of their lives either directly or indirectly.

The film adaptation features several entertaining musical renditions, and the performances are thoroughly engaging. Yet the film adaptation by director Chris Columbus is a by-the-numbers production that fails to muster the power that the film’s characters and their circumstances demand. Columbus’s previous directorial work includes Home Alone, Only the Lonely, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and The Bicentennial Man. These films are comparably much lighter, though, and Columbus’s gift for infusing those films with broad comedic strokes is not what is needed here. The film and its audience would have benefited from a director with the deft skill of combining passionate musical performances with the somber tone befitting young adults struggling with their sexual identities and the very prospect of living in an age of HIV/AIDS. Despite a full two hours-plus running time, the film never develops these characters beyond their initial conditions. The character of Angel, in particular, isn't given the screen time to become the emotional catalyst that the film demands. This is a shortcoming not only in Rent but in Chris Columbus's work in general. As in his adaptation of the first two Harry Potter novels, Columbus is faithful to a fault. But this is a detriment, for his effort here lacks artistic expression and interpretation. To astute observers, Columbus is anything but a logical choice for this material. Julie Taymoor, who brilliantly directed The Lion King on Broadway and then showed her versatility with her direction of Frida, could have effectively adapted this material for the screen. Unfortunately, the American studio system has produced and delivered a film that is packaged as proudly progressive, yet its direction is marred by restraint and limitation. The shortcoming renders the film void of vision and power and useless in impacting the callous conservativism it seeks to challenge.

Grade: C+

Bee Season

Bee Season is one of the more ambitious films audiences will see this year. Based on the novel by Myla Goldberg, it tells the story of Eliza, an eleven-year-old girl whose sudden success in spelling bees has an unforeseen effect on her family. Relative newcomer Flora Cross delivers a rich performance as the sixth grader. She's given a wide variety of emotions to portray and she does so amazingly well. Richard Gere, one of America’s most underrated actors, is convincing as the girl’s father, a quietly stern Jewish theologian with a special interest in mysticism and the Kabbalah. Julianne Binoche and Max Minghella (son of the renowned director Anthony Minghella) portray the girls’ mother and teenage brother, respectively.

Even in a great year for American films, Bee Season is memorable for its intelligence. As the film progresses, Saul (Richard Gere) teaches Eliza the secrets of the Kabbalah and explains how she can use her understanding of it to become an even better speller. The plot point is as thought-provoking and as philosophical and theological as any in American film this year, and it is water that is rarely tread intelligently. The film’s courage in challenging the audience to consider the role of faith in our lives and the relationship of faith to the gifts and talents God has bestowed upon us is to be admired.

But the film suffers somewhat from two subplots that seem as if they could have used a bit more time. One involves Saul’s neglect of his son Aaron and the other involves his wife Miriam’s inability to cope with the pressures of her daily life, caused by troubling memories of her parents’ death. The film asks us to believe that Aaron drifts away from the roots of his faith as retaliation for his father’s neglect, but how he retaliates is likely to be the subject of some debate. During the course of their own struggles, Miriam and Aaron each move apart from Saul while maintaining some closeness to Eliza. The subplots are not quite distractions from the main story of Eliza’s growth, for her growth is linked to how the situations involving her father, mother, and brother are resolved. They simply aren’t as finely executed, and for that the film is not as accomplished as it could be.

Bee Season was directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, the team who co-directed The Deep End, an acclaimed thriller from several years ago. As in The Deep End, the directors elicit passionate performances, and here they generate genuine suspense from the drama that unfolds. Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, who wrote the screenplay to a family drama Running on Empty, adapted the screenplay for Bee Season. Her collaboration with McGehee and Siegel falls short of being the rousing critical successes of either of the aforementioned films. But for all of its ideas, Bee Season has a running time of only one hour and forty-four minutes. Its story construction and overall ambitions deserve more time, which would make viewing the film a more complete experience for audiences who may find themselves yearning for more.

Grade: B-

News and Notes

Syriana, a geopolitical drama about the oil industry, will open nationwide on Friday, December 9. It's one of several politically controversial films to be released this holiday season. The others include the soon-to-be-released Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg; Good Night and Good Luck from director George Clooney; and Jarhead from director Sam Mendes.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the five highest grossing movies for November 21-26 are as follows:

Harry Potter $102.3 million
Walk the Line $22.3 million
Chicken Little $99.1 million
Derailed $21.8 million
Zathura $20.3 million

The big movies to be released in the month of December include the following: The Chronicles of Narnia, Brokeback Mountain, King Kong, and Match Point.

You Heard it Here First: Vince's 2005 Oscar Predictions

Best Picture:

Memoirs of a Geisha
Brokeback Mountain
Munich
Match Point
Pride and Prejudice

Best Actor

Joaquin Phoenix Walk the Line
Daniel Strathairn Good Night and Good Luck
Philip Seymour Hoffman Capote
Heath Ledger Brokeback Mountain
Russell Crowe Cinderella Man

Best Actress:

Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice
Charlize Theron North Country
Gi Jhong Memoirs of a Geisha
Judi Dench Mrs. Henderson Presents'
Reese Witherspoon Walk the Line

Theron and Danes Endure Harassment and Love Wounds in North Country and Shopgirl

Charlize Theron, who mesmerized audiences in Monster, stars in North Country, a stark drama based on the first sexual harassment class action suit in the U.S. Set in Minnesota in 1989 (five years after the actual lawsuit), the story revolves around a young mother who flees her abusive husband with her teenage son and young daughter in tow and takes a job at a mining company. Directed by Niki Caro (Whale Rider), the film chronicles the struggles of Josie Aimes and the harrowing acts of harassment she and other women at the company faced. The characters in the film watch bits of the 1989 Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill trial, which gives the film a hint of historicity.

From the outset there is little support for Josie from her family. Her father (Richard Jenkins) asks Josie if her husband hit her because he caught her with another man, and he is even more chagrined when he learns she has taken a job at the mining company. He is a man of the mine and he makes the decidedly dated case that a woman’s place is in the home raising children. Sissy Spacek, in an effectively understated performance, portrays his wife, Josie’s mother, and the quiet matriarch of the family. She, a woman married to a man of the mine, watches with trepidation, for her daughter has done what she has been unable to do----defy her husband and be her own woman. Josie’s teenage son resents his mother for being the negative talk of the town.

Most of Josie’s support comes from her lifelong friend, Gloria, played by Frances McDormand. In addition to bearing an accent that resembles the one McDormand made famous in Fargo, Gloria is the token woman supervisor at the company. She’s one of the guys. She drinks with them, plays cards with them, and watches as the other women at the mine endure the pain inflicted by the rabble-rousing, mischievous, and eventually dangerous workers. The other women in the company, including Josie, grin and bear whatever the men in the mine feel like doing to them on the day until one of the men does something so heinous to Josie that she files a suit against him and the company. Woody Harrelson plays Bill White, a down-on-his-luck attorney, who represents Josie in court. He is pitted against a calculating female corporate attorney, nicely played by Linda Emond.

Legendary film critic Gene Siskel once prefaced a review of a film by saying, “Film critics must always be careful when reviewing films about social issues. They must ask themselves whether or not they are reviewing the films on their merits or their intentions.“ Well, North Country is a well-intentioned film about important social and employment issues that are too often overlooked. The film doesn’t spend a lot of time hinting at the subtleties of sexual harassment. It’s a film about the very real pain that men boldly inflicted on women. Subtlety, the filmmakers would have us believe, came along later in bigger cities and in larger companies or in some combination of these categories. Scattered with stock characters, familiar exploits, and dramatic revelations, North Country is a proud, liberal message movie sporting powerful performances that may serve to remind America of the harassment that hundreds of women face each day in the workplace.

Grade: B

Shopgirl, based on the novella by Steve Martin, is a bittersweet romantic tale about self-discovery and love gained and lost in the big city of L.A. Martin, who once again infuses his great love of the metropolis into his story, demonstrates an obvious sympathy for his three main characters, Mirabelle (Claire Danes), Jeremy (Jason Schwartzmann), and Ray Porter, whom Martin himself portrays. These central characters are three lonely people in L.A. Mirabelle is a sales clerk at Saks Fifth Avenue from Vermont who spends her evenings alone taking long, hot baths and working on pieces of art that she’s uncertain she will ever sell. Jeremy is a poor young man not even close to becoming a successful producer, while Ray is a wealthy divorcee who has made a chunk of his money in the computer industry. Like most single young adults Mirabelle and Jeremy spend lots of evenings at laundry mats, and the two happen to be at the same location one evening. They exchange pleasantries, and Mirabelle eventually succumbs to Jeremy’s request for a date.

Jeremy and Ray fall for Mirabelle. In Jeremy Mirabelle sees an uncomfortable, bumbling, and unintentionally humorous man with seemingly not much to offer. In Ray she sees a wealthy man who seems to have the world by his hands and who can seemingly offer her anything. What a contrast and what a choice for a young twenty-something to make.

Claire Danes, who is radiant in several scenes in the film, displays an uncertainty and suggests a hint of confidence that her role requires. She’s understandably uncertain about her place in the big city and about Ray’s attraction to her, yet she’s considerably more confident and assured than her less formal suitor, Jeremy. She’s almost uncomfortable about her confidence level when she’s around Jeremy, and Danes plays this perfectly. Although some prospective viewers of the film may think they know where the film is headed, they should be assured that the film’s path to its destination is filled with genuinely poignant moments, some wonderful bits of quirky humor, and an almost hilarious comeuppance for a supporting character who constantly has her eye on Miribelle.

Shopgirl is written with uncommon wisdom and insight. It’s the kind of story that might have attracted a director such as Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire and Elizabethtown), but Martin’s script here is more mature than either of those films. It’s more focused in its narrative, and although its story construction is far simpler than what is found in either of those aforementioned films, it manages to be far more introspective about the idiosyncracies of young adults and middle-aged men without making gross generalizations about either generation.

As Ray, Steve Martin is as sublime as he’s been in any of his other dramatic roles (The Spanish Prisoner). His Ray is winsome and captivating on dates with Mirabelle and candid and forthright in answering deeply personal questions in his counseling sessions. Normally, Martin has the face of a thousand emotions. Yet here he masks his facial expressions until unveiling them at just the right moments and in just the right manner.

Let it be stated here that both men love Mirabelle. They simply love her differently and not always the way we would like. Those who see the film and watch the story unfold will understand just how true its revelations are about life, love, and time and the consequences of our choices about them.

Grade: B+

News and Notes

Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man, which limped out of movie theaters in August, is still a bonafide Oscar contender according to industry insiders. Other contenders appear to be King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha, Munich, Walk the Line, and Brokeback Mountain.

The release of All the King’s Men, the remake of the Broderick Crawford classic about politics in New Orleans, has been delayed until 2006. The movie stars Sean Penn, Mark Ruffalo, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, and Patricia Clarkson. Steven Zaillain, the film’s writer and director, apparently needs more time to edit. Sony, the company behind the film, has opted to concentrate its Oscar efforts on the upcoming Rob Marshall film, Memoirs of a Geisha.

Peter Webber, who directed Girl with a Pearl Earring, has been tapped to direct Young Hannibal: Behind the Mask. Thomas Harris, author of The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, is writing the screenplay. The movie will star Gaspard Ulliel (A Very Long Engagement).

The Chronicles of Narnia is scheduled to be released on December 9. Advance screenings will be held in the following cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.