Category Archives: Social Satire

Angst in my pants: Dark Horse ***1/2

August 25, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 4, 2012)

Lowered expectations: Blair and Gelber in Dark Horse

“Why does one decide to marry? Social pressure? Boredom? Loneliness? Sexual appeasement? Love? I won’t put any of these reasons down…Last year, I married a musician who wanted to get married in order to stop masturbating…He is now separated, still masturbating, but he is at peace with himself because he tried society’s way.”

-the wedding minister in Little Murders (screenplay by Jules Feiffer)

Todd Solondz loves to make his audience uncomfortable. I can’t imagine anyone sitting through a film like Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness or Storytelling without squirming in their seat, grinding their teeth or occasionally putting their hand over their eyes and daring themselves to peek. And what is it that the viewer is afraid of looking at? It’s not what you may think. It’s not an axe murderer, lurking in the closet. It’s not someone being doused with gasoline and set ablaze or having their fingernails pulled out one by one. No, it’s much, much worse than that. Because there is nothing that human beings fear coming face to face with more than…human nature. Or the Truth. Because the Truth is…life is nothing like the movies. Paradoxically, Solondz’s films are a lot like life.

Refreshingly, his latest film, Dark Horse, does not induce the usual amount of squirming and grinding and daring yourself to peek. Not that it lacks the dark comedic flourishes that have become the director’s stock in trade, but it actually toys with sweetness and light. Sort of a twisty, postmodern art house re-imagining of Marty, the story centers on Abe (Jordan Gelber), a portly thirty-something nudnik who lives with his parents (Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow, worth the price of admission right there).

Abe works for his father, collects action figures and doesn’t have any aspirations. You sense in Abe an undercurrent of angst and desperation, likely exacerbated by constant doting from his over-protective mother and verbal drubbing from his hyper-critical father. Abe also harbors a seething resentment toward his brother (Justin Bartha), a successful doctor.

Yes, Abe is a man-child…in the most petulant, cringe-worthy sense (which makes him a typical Solondz protagonist). Yet, he sees himself as a catch; a “dark horse” waiting to be discovered by some lucky lady (perhaps one who finds a delusional thirty-something man who works for his dad, collects toys and lives with his parents to be devastatingly attractive). Still, Abe registers genuine surprise when Miranda (Selma Blair), a lovely thirty-something woman he meets at a wedding, gives him her phone number after a few minutes of meaningless chatter.

Of course, there is a catch. She’s completely nuts (and lives with her parents, too). She’s so profoundly depressed (and heavily medicated) that she can barely hold a conversation. However, she is startled from her psychotropic haze when Abe proposes marriage during their first date (“You’re not being ironic…like performance art or something?” she asks). Abe assures her that he is being dead serious.

From this point onward, the viewer begins to wonder if maybe it is the filmmaker who is being ironic…like performance art or something? Without giving too much away, we become uncertain whether some events are occurring in the protagonist’s reality, or in his imagination. Gelber (who reminds me of the late Jack Weston) imbues his troubled character with enough vulnerability to invite empathy, yet spikes the punch with a fair amount of edgy unpredictability (lest we get too comfortable).

Blair slyly pinpoints the sweet spot between funny and sad with her deadpan performance, and Walken’s magnificently gauche toupee deserves its own star billing. Solondz has fashioned something akin to a modern Jewish morality tale, in the tradition of Jules Feiffer, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Mordecai Richler (Could Solondz be their heir apparent?). He’s also delivered a thought-provoking treatise on life, love and death. While he doesn’t let anyone completely off the hook (including the audience), he slips enough humanity and compassion into the mix to make the Truth a little bit easier to swallow this time around.

Culture Clash, Dramedy, Social Satire, Up the Workers

The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie: The Women on the 6th Floor ***

July 30, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 3, 2011)

If there is one thing I’ve learned from the movies (at least ever since Alan Bates said “Zorba, teach me to dance” to Anthony Quinn) it’s that the Noble Peasant has much wisdom to impart to the Uptight Bourgeoisie (particularly when it comes to learning the sirtaki).

The latest example is a French import (set in 1960s Paris) called The Women on the 6^th Floor, an “upstairs/downstairs” social satire from director Phillipe Le Guay. In this case, the servile class occupies the uppermost floor of an apartment building owned by a staid middle-aged stockbroker named Jean-Louis (Fabrice Luchini). Jean-Louis, who inherited the property from his father, lives in a swanky downstairs apartment with his neurotic wife (Sandrine Kiberlane) and two spoiled teenage sons. After the family’s cranky long-time maid quits in a huff, he hires lovely Maria (Natalia Verbeke), who takes a room on the 6^th floor, where she joins a small group of fellow female Spanish émigrés.

It’s obvious from the get-go that Jean-Louis is quite charmed by the young Maria, who invites him upstairs to meet her friends. Although he has lived in the building since infancy, Jean-Louis has somehow never managed to venture up the 6^th floor. At least, that’s the only possible explanation for his “shock” when he discovers the relatively dismal living conditions endured by the nonetheless high-spirited coterie of Spanish maids who live in the servant’s quarters.

Well, mostly high-spirited. One maid gives him a cooler reception. “Oh, don’t mind her,” another one of the women cheerfully offers, “she’s a Communist” (with a heart of gold). At any rate, Jean-Louis is seized by a sudden urge to make amends for the disparity (yes, that fast) and, spurred by his newly found sense of altruism, begins making some capital improvements to the 6^th floor. Now that his armor has been breached, it’s only a matter of time until he’s hanging out with the gals, laughing, breaking out the good vintage from his cellar, and discovering the savory delights of authentic homemade paella. You know-he’s leaning how to dance the sirtaki.

With a trope this hoary, you’d better have something substantive to back it up with, and luckily, Le Guay offers assured direction and well-coaxed performances from his entire cast. Luchini (a 40-year film veteran) brings just the right amount of warmth, poignancy and self-effacing humor to his portrayal of a man coming to grips with an unexpected winter passion. The film’s secret weapon is Verbeke, a voluptuous Argentine who brings an earthy sensuality to the screen that reminds me of the young Sonia Braga. While this film doesn’t break any ground, it may teach you a few new steps.

Religion, Road Movie, Social Satire

Sinners and saints: Salvation Boulevard *1/2

July 30, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 30, 2011)

Salvation Boulevard is precisely the type of black comedy/social satire/noirish morality play that the Coen brothers excel at. Unfortunately, the Coen brothers didn’t direct it. Or write it. However, I will hand it to writer-director George Ratliff-it does take a special kind of skill to so effectively squander the potential of a cast that includes Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Marisa Tomei and Ed Harris.

Kinnear plays ex-Deadhead Carl, a member of a megachurch who has traded the tie-dye and Thai Stick of hippiedom for the sackcloth and ashes of born-again Christendom. Well, maybe not completely (is there really such a thing as an “ex”-Deadhead?), because you get the impression that his wife Gwen (Connelly) is the one who really wears the piety in the family.

Gwen is slavishly devoted to the edicts of the church’s charismatic leader, Pastor Dan (Brosnan), a slick hustler with ambitions to build his own “city on a hill” (more as a monument to himself, than to the Lord-one suspects). Their teen daughter (Isabelle Fuhrman) is apprehensive about Mom’s push to psych her up for taking her “vows” at an upcoming “purity ball”. Meanwhile, malleable Carl just goes with the flow.

One evening, following a televised debate at the megachurch between Pastor Dan and guest speaker Dr. Blaylock (Harris), a famous atheist writer, Carl ends up driving the pastor to the doctor’s home for a nightcap. In the midst of a conversation about the possibilities of the two men co-authoring a book, Pastor Dan accidentally shoots Dr. Blaylock in the head while handling an antique pistol (oops!), leaving the writer alive, but in a coma.

Carl, of course, wants to do the right thing and call the police immediately; but the silver-tongued pastor persuades him to hold off until they get back to the church. Yes, Carl is being set up to be the fall guy-and by the time he realizes it, Pastor Dan, with no shortage of worshipful toadies at his disposal, has the upper hand. No one believes Carl’s side of the story, even Gwen (she chalks it up as a “hallucination”-maybe a relapse to his druggie DFH past). He finally finds a sympathetic ear in a female church security guard (Tomei) who bonds with him as a fellow Deadhead.

Once the pair (seemingly the only two sane and likable characters in the story) hit the highway in a VW van, with the evil heavies from the church in hot pursuit, you would think that you are now in for a darkly amusing “road movie”, chockablock with wacky vignettes fueled by the colorful characters encountered along the way. You would think.

But it is at this point in the film that Ratliff (and his co-writer Douglas Stone) make a fatal mistake. Well, two. First, Tomei’s character gets dropped like a rock-which is too bad, because the only time the film really came alive for me was when she was onscreen. Secondly, from the moment Carl is abruptly kidnapped by a Mexican drug lord (don’t ask) the whole narrative gets hijacked as well, grinding the entire film to a thudding halt.

I’m not sure what happened here; but most of the cast (with the exception of Tomei) sleepwalk through the film (and these are usually reliable actors). Bad direction? Not enough direction? Weak script? All of the above? Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint.

Whatever the root cause, the end product is forced and flat; it’s like a lame network sitcom making a futile attempt to be as hip as, say, Weeds. I had also greatly anticipated the re-pairing of Brosnan and Kinnear, who made a perfect tag team in the 2005 black comedy, The Matador. But alas, it was not to be. Another unpardonable sin-the megachurch phenom is so ripe for a satirical takedown, and that opportunity is blown as well. So I am afraid I have to say: “Praise the Lord and pass the multiplex” on this one.

Cult Movie, Horror, Social Satire

Naughty and not so nice: Rare Exports ***1/2

July 3, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 25, 2010)

It’s official. I now have a new favorite Christmas movie. John Carpenter’s The Thing meets Miracle on 34^th Street in Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander’s Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, a wickedly clever Yule story that spices up the usual holiday family movie recipe by folding in generous dollops of sci-fi, horror, and Norse legend.

The twist here is that our protagonist, a young boy named Pietari (Onni Tommila) not only believes that Santa Claus is, in fact, real, but that he is buried just beyond the back 40 of his dad’s reindeer ranch, where American archeologists are excavating a mysterious promontory. After bizarre and troubling events begin to plague Pietari’s sleepy little hamlet, it looks that Santa may have just been “resting”. And if this is the mythical Santa Pietari suspects, then he is more Balrog than eggnog…and is best left undisturbed.

The director also works a sly anti-consumerist polemic into his narrative. Pietra’s dad (Jorma Tommila) and his fellow reindeer hunters-who are more chagrinned that the saturnine Santa is threatening their livelihood by slaughtering all the reindeer than by the fact that he is also methodically kidnapping the village children and spiriting them away to an undisclosed location, manage to capture him, and then demand a “ransom” from the corporate weasel who, for his own nefarious reasons, is funding the dig.

In the meantime, a legion of Santa’s nasty little “helpers” are running amuck and wreaking havoc. Pietari, the only one keeping a cool head, just wants to enjoy Christmas with dad-even if he has to transform into a midget version of Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness to rescue the children (and save the farm, in a manner of speaking).

There’s nothing “cute” about this film, yet it’s by no means mean-spirited, either. It is an off-beat, darkly funny, and wholly original treat for moviegoers hungry for a fresh alternative to the 999^th lifetime viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story. Speaking as someone who lived for many years within a day’s drive of the Arctic Circle, the film also perfectly captures the stark beauty of midwinter in the far Northern Hemisphere; especially that unique dichotomy of soothing tranquility and alien desolation that it can bring to one’s soul. And for god’s sake-let Santa rest in peace.

Con Game, Dramedy, Social Satire

SIFF 2009: Poppy Shakespeare ***1/2

June 24, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 13, 2009)

Sometimes I get a little twitch when a movie breaks down the “fourth wall” and a protagonist starts talking to the audience in the opening scene. When it works, it can be quite engaging (Alfie); when it doesn’t (SLC Punk), it seems to double the running time of the film. In the case of Poppy Shakespeare, the device pays off in spades, thanks to the extraordinary charisma and acting chops of an up-and-coming young British thespian by the name of Anna Maxwell Martin.

Martin plays “N”, a mentally troubled young woman who has grown up ostensibly as a ward of the state, shuffled about from foster care to government subsidized mental health providers for most of her life. She collects a “mad money” pension from the government, and spends most of her waking hours at a London “day hospital” (where many of the patients participate on a voluntary basis and are free to go home at night).

In an introductory scene (reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), we learn that most of the patients in Poppy’s particular day ward appear to gather not so much for the therapy group sessions, but to swap tips on the latest loopholes in England’s socialized health care system. Poppy is a a rock star in the group, due to her savvy in working the system (she’s “crazy”, alright…like a fox).

She is a polar opposite to Cuckoo’s Nest hero R.P. McMurphy. Rather than looking for ways to break out of the laughing house, she is always scamming ways to avoid being discharged from state-sponsored care (bye-bye gravy train). She seems perfectly happy to bide time at the hospital by day, and make a beeline to her lonely flat at nights and weekends to gobble meds and shut in with the telly. N’s comfortable routine hits a snag, however when her doctor “assigns” her to mentor a new day patient named Poppy (Naomie Harris).

Unlike the majority of patients in the ward, Poppy’s admittance for observation has been mandated by the state, based on answers she gave on a written personality profile she filled out as part of a job application (some Orwellian overtones there). She desperately implores N to use her knowledge of the system to help her prove to the doctors that she isn’t crazy. In a Catch-22 style twist, the financially tapped Poppy realizes that the only way she can afford the services of the attorney N has recommended to her is to become eligible for “mad money”. In other words, in order to prove that she isn’t crazy, she has to first get everyone to think that she is nuts.

This may sound like a comedy; while there are some amusing moments, I need to warn you that this is pretty bleak fare (on my way out of the screening, I asked an usher if he had a bit of rope handy). That being said, it is well written (Sarah Williams adapted from Clare Allan’s novel) and directed (by Benjamin Ross, who also helmed an excellent sleeper a few years back called The Young Poisoner’s Handbook). The jabs at England’s health care system reminded me a bit of Lindsay Anderson’s “institutional” satires (Britannia Hospital in particular). Harris is very affecting as Poppy, but it is Martin who commands your attention throughout. She has a Glenda Jackson quality about her that tells me she will likely be around for a while. She’s better than good. She’s crazy good.

Drama, Family Issues, Social Satire, Up the Workers

Everybody hurts: La Nana ***

June 22, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 5, 2009)

Upstairs, creepy stares: Catalina Saavedra in The Maid

Mike Leigh, meet Sebastian Silva. With his second feature, La Nana (aka The Maid) the Chilean writer-director has made a beautifully acted little film that plays like a telenovela, black comedy, intimate character study and social commentary, all rolled into one.

Catalina Saavedra is a revelation as Raquel, a live-in maid employed by an upper-middle class family in Santiago for over 20 years. More than just a housekeeper, she has been the nanny to all the children since birth, and is considered a family member. However, despite her dedicated years of service with the loving clan, who (with the exception of one of the daughters) treat her with the utmost deference and respect, Raquel vibes a glum countenance; she remains emotionally guarded and cryptically aloof much of the time.

When some chronic health issues begin to compromise her efficiency, the mother (Claudia Celedon) decides to hire a second maid to give her a hand. The territorial Raquel is not at all pleased; passive-aggressiveness escalates into open hostility as we watch her transform into a veritable Cruella DeVille.

After manipulatively hastening the departures of two new hires in rapid succession, Raquel suddenly finds herself facing a formidable “opponent”. Her name is Lucy (Mariana Loyola). Her weapons are serenity and compassion. No matter what amount of bad vibes or acts of spite Raquel hurtles in her direction, they all appear to incinerate harmlessly in the aura of Lucy’s perennially sunny disposition before they can reach their target.

Then, something miraculous begins to unfold-Raquel’s seemingly impenetrable defensive shell cracks, and as it does, the emotional repression of 42 years slowly peels away, resulting in unexpectedly delightful and engaging twists and turns.

Initially, I was reminded of Joseph Losey’s dark class struggle allegory, The Servant; but as the film switched gears, I found it closer to the more recent Happy Go Lucky. Saavedra’s wonderful and fearless performance is the heart of the film. In less sensitive hands, the character of Raquel could have easily been an unsympathetic cartoon villain, but Saavedra never allows her character’s humanity to slip from our view. Raquel is a reminder that everybody deserves a chance to be loved and understood. And that’s a good thing.