The Amazing Technicolor Dream

Hugo

**** out of ****

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helen McCrory

Running time: 127 minutes

Most directors who pursue family friendly projects usually won’t start this endeavour when they are 69. Then again, most directors aren’t like Martin Scorsese.

One of America’s grittiest storytellers, Scorsese leaves the mean streets behind for the Parisian limelight in Hugo, a visually wondrous and deeply sentimental adventure that ranks as one of his richest and most accomplished works.

Adapted from Brian Selznick’s whimsical bestseller The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the film feels timeless from the first frame as a tracking shot sweeps through a crowded train station in the heart of Paris. Overlooking this station is an orphaned boy, Hugo Cabret (the terrific Asa Butterfield).

Responsible for ensuring that the clocks are running like, well, clockwork, Hugo has adorned the attic of the train station as his home, complete with a stunning view of Paris and enough room to store his inventions. The Pièce de résistance in his collection is an automaton, Hugo’s only connection to his late father (played in flashback by Jude Law), who found the machine abandoned in a museum but could never find the heart-shaped key needed to unlock it.

When he isn’t spying on a flurry of colourful personalities around the station or fleeing from the snidely inspector, Gustav (Sacha Baron Cohen, excellent comic relief), the orphan is sneaking handfuls of mechanical parts from Georges (Ben Kingsley), a toy store owner, to make sure the automaton is in mint condition.

But when Georges snatches Hugo’s notebook, the boy tries to get it back with the help of the toy store owner’s granddaughter, a curious bookworm named Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz). Together, the two discover the illuminating truth about Papa Georges, who used to be a major figure in the world of cinema.

From there, the film develops into an ode to early French cinema. Even if you can’t distinguish the Lumière Brothers from the Jonas Brothers, it’s hard not to be captivated by the engaging lessons in film history our professor Scorsese ratchets up. This portion is more than a mere regurgitation of Film 101 semantics, but helps bring colour and detail to Papa Georges' subplot, a major factor in the film's latter half.

Throughout his 45-year career, Scorsese's films have been consistently reliable with two things: having a rich atmosphere and strong, nuanced performances. Both come in full supply here.

An accelerated chase sequence at the film’s start flurries through a selection of boutiques and shops at the train station, from a bookstore where the novels are stacked up in small moutains to an airy café that comes equipped with a tiny jazz band and French pastries.

The sequence also covers the cramped corridors packed with billowing smoke and clock-related machinery that lead up to Hugo’s living space. Beyond the mystery aspects and the homage to early cinema, Hugo is also a triumph of art direction. The detail packed into each set is dazzlingly exorbitant, richly realized by production designer Dante Ferretti (who won an Oscar for Scorsese’s The Aviator in 2005).

Beyond the beautiful visuals, though, there is also real merit behind the performances. Asa Butterfield is a remarkably compelling leading man, with piercing blue eyes and a burgeoning curiosity that hooks into the compelling mystery elements at Hugo’s centre. He is precocious yet involuntarily vulnerable and exhibits an impressive range, as does his co-star, the impeccably reliable young actress Chloe Grace Moretz.

Beyond Howard Shore’s dreamlike score – which characteristically shifts from wistful to tender notes depending on the scene – the film also explores the rich connections characters make through art, whether they be on the page or on celluloid. That Scorsese is a known film enthusiast and preservationist is no secret, but how he depicts that passion for cinema is sublime, a word I save for special instances. Hugo marks one of those occasions: it is a movie to love that is all about loving movies.

And why save a swooning piece of nostalgic cinematic adoration for his first family entertainment? Well, as all great storytellers know, everything is infinitely more romantic when it is told through the eyes of the child. Whether the child in question is our titular character or the 69-year-old filmmaker is up for speculation.

Public Hero, Private Enemy

J. Edgar

**1/2 out of ****

Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench and Josh Lucas

Running time: 137 minutes

There’s something fascinating about having the man who embodied the archetype of the corrupt cop in the Dirty Harry films direct a biographical picture about prolific FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

At first glance, the two figures seem to be character foils. But upon reflection of watching Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, there is much common ground between Frisco’s gritty six-shooter and America’s white knight of crime. They both pursue justice and are committed to doing the right thing, even if that means going beyond proper jurisdiction.

But J. Edgar is far from a rough, gnarly, unapologetic action film in the Clint Eastwood (and Harry Callahan) tradition; instead, it’s a safe, chaste, insightful history lesson about one of the 20th century’s most remarkable and controversial figures. In other words, it's an ordinary dissection of an extraordinary American.

Hoover is played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is more convincing than the patchy makeup work pasted on him implies. In the midst of having his memoirs transcribed by a collective of writers, an aged Hoover tries to sum up his rich legacy - one that made him what many considered to be the second-most powerful man in America underneath every administration from Coolidge to Nixon.

J. Edgar picks and chooses the highlights of his biography, from his rise to fame as an impassioned Justice Department advisor, who led planned raids against riotous Bolshevik groups, to a towering figure in crime-fighting during a time where gangsters were the most glorified stars in the newspapers and on the big screen. He also fought for and approved a centralized fingerprint system, which has certainly paid dividends for any police force or television network with a cop procedural currently airing.

Beyond his most prolific cases, notably the murder of John Dillinger and the manhunt for Charles Lindbergh’s kidnapped child, J. Edgar focuses on the many ironies that made up the man’s life.

Although he was a moral man who strictly disciplined his officers, he had no problem keeping a few confidential documents handy in case he needed to bring down the governments of the era. Although he worked hard to maintain a public image as an all-American hero, he was an isolated, closeted recluse with few friends and confidantes.

Among this modest number of acquaintances was his personal assistant, the dapper Clyde Tolsson (Armie Hammer), and the film - written by Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black - suggests that this burgeoning friendship was one of a homoerotic nature. Hoover was also a sheltered ‘mama’s boy,’ intimidated by his domineering mother, Annie (a stellar Judi Dench), who rarely glowed in appreciation of her son’s accomplishments.

While J. Edgar Hoover looked into the country’s secrets, he had difficulty confronting his own. This is intriguing, yet unfortunate for a biographical film whose purpose is supposed to confront its subject's legacy.

Regardless, DiCaprio is solid here, although his range is notably less impressive than it was in Martin Scorsese’s terrific 2004 historical biopic, The Aviator. As a young man, he encompasses the stalwart crime-fighter's electrifying drive to justice. Recounting tales of catching gangsters underneath mounds of old man makeup, however, DiCaprio’s voice still has a youthful verve and confidence. In these bizarre segments, Hoover sounds like a 30-year-old but looks like Jack Nicholson.

One wishes that J. Edgar would have chronicled the changes in the man himself with as much keen insight as it recalls how he revolutionized criminal justice in America. Most biographical films stress the character first before the history, although J. Edgar bucks this trend: it is more of a richly acted museum display or history lesson than it is an engaging character study.

Although some of the ironies mentioned above are intriguing, there is a stunning lack of personality in Black's script. In the film, the young men working on Hoover’s memoirs are trying to figure out whether or not the American legend was a hero or a villain. The film makes the case for both; however, it may have been more potent if it had only pursued one of these characterizations.

You Can Check Out Any Time You Like…

Martha Marcy May Marlene

**** out of ****

Directed by: Sean Durkin

Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy and Brady Corbet

Running time: 102 minutes

The sorrow comes in waves for Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) after she decides to flee from a cult commune in upstate New York. She tiptoes out of her quaint sleeping quarters one still morning and retreats headlong into the forest.

Later that day, her voice chattering, Martha phones her protective sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson). Lucy picks her up and lets her stay at the newly built Connecticut cottage that she shares with her English husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy).

It may be a vacation home for the young couple, but it only brings home the worst fears for the unstable Martha, haunted by the memories of her abusive cult leader, Patrick (John Hawkes) – a man who told her that “fear is the greatest emotion because it gives you full awareness.”

Even though she is hundreds of miles away from Patrick and the subservient life she led for two dismal years, Martha is fully and completely aware. The wanting come in waves, too, and Martha wants peace. Unfortunately, peace is hard to maintain when you are cold, alone and desperate.

If you get past the cleverly alliterative names in the title – Martha is referred to as “Marcy May” on the commune and all women living there use “Marlene” when they answer the phone – then there are two more you should not forget: Elizabeth Olsen and Sean Durkin.

Olsen, younger sibling to twins Mary-Kate and Ashley, is astonishing in her screen debut, where she encounters a role of constant emotional complexity. Her face is plain but opaque and hard to read, and as fragments of her memories from two years on the cult return to her damaged psyche, Olsen remains deeply vulnerable while becoming increasingly unpredictable.

Alone in the darkness at night, Martha is frightened that the folks from the commune will return. She dreads looking out the window or into the distance and narrowly avoids eye contact with anyone or anything. Olsen is shatteringly good, her character unable to get rid of the conflicted feelings that grip at her, which seep into the comfortable framework of Lucy's cottage.

Aligned with her point-of-view, suspense steadily builds for the audience, as well. It is one of the many pleasures from watching a film – and a film debut – from a writer/director who has capable control over ever tinted frame.

Like Martha, we seamlessly wander between scenes in the present and mementos from the past, and Durkin steers through these jumps of time with impressive smoothness and efficiency. The tinny bellows of the musical score by Daniel Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, distant yet incessant, keep us within her entrapped state of mind.

Sarah Paulson and Hugh Dancy also offer strong supporting work, as the former tries to reconnect with the younger sister who abandoned her, while the latter is curious about her whereabouts, of which Martha has remained silent.

Those whereabouts, a self-sufficient centre where women and men have separate quarters for eating, working and sleeping, is rampant with "family" secrets. Martha goes along with this "family," hoping to find a role and a purpose as “a leader and a teacher,” as its leader Patrick so poignantly puts it.

This Patrick is played by John Hawkes, one of American independent cinema’s greatest treasures. Fresh off a sharp, gritty turn in Winter’s Bone that garnered him a deserved Oscar nomination, Hawkes measures a terrific balance of menace and seduction with his antagonist character. He ably coaxes the males and females on the commune to commit ungrateful acts for him, knowing that they blindly oblige to prove their loyalty.

Hawkes, piercing glare and all, is, to use another word beginning with “M,” mesmerizing. Here’s another word with that letter that sums up Martha Marcy May Marlene: masterpiece.

Not Worth Your Time or Money

In Time

** out of ****

Directed by: Andrew Niccol

Starring: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser and Olivia Wilde

Running time: 109 minutes

When 20th Century Fox scheduled their dystopian thriller In Time for theatrical release this October, they probably didn’t realize that their futuristic tale about an uprising against a capitalist regime would have such precedence. As the film plays in thousands of theatres across North America, tens of thousands are camped out not too far from the multiplexes, discussing the same issues that are brought up in the film.

But while In Time may be a zeitgeist-defining film – one that captures the spirit of our times, like last year’s The Social Network and 2009’s Up in the Air – it isn’t necessarily a good one.

It is a flashier if paler version of writer/director Andrew Niccol’s sci-fi debut, the intelligent and thought-provoking Gattaca, which explored how one’s social class could be determined by their DNA. In Niccol's latest dystopia, money has been vanquished as a form of currency and people spend time instead.

After 25 years, humans are genetically engineered to stop aging. From this point on, when they die depends on when their time runs out. At 25, you start with one year of time remaining, and can choose the extent of how to spend your time. Unfortunately, prices are going up: a cup of coffee will set you back four days. To gain time, you need to forget the luxuries and work hard.

Enter factor worker Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), who lives in a dingy ghetto with his mother (Olivia Wilde) and has just a few weeks left on his genetic timeline – a neon green imprint on his left arm tells the audience just how much time Will has left throughout.

One day, Will helps a wealthy man with more than a century left, Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), evade a gang that steal time by forcing themselves onto others – in one of the film's more far-fetched ideas, time can be transferred between humans by mere touch.

Hamilton explains to Will that although time can be distributed evenly, it is stockpiled for the rich so they can achieve immortality. “For a few to be immortal, many must die,” Hamilton says. Grim and disheartened, Hamilton transfers the rest of his time to Salas before “timing out” and collapsing off a bridge.

While Will has just won a lottery of time, a camera placed near the scene of Hamilton’s death implicates the young man in the millionaire's death. As the police force, called Timekeepers (led by the always reliable Cillian Murphy), pursue Will, our hero makes a run for the richer Time Zones – which are districts that divide their populations up by social status – in hopes of seeking revenge against these immortal few.

In his travels, he meets the slimy time-loaning magnum Phillipe Weis (Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser) and his beautiful, yet rebellious daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), who takes an instant liking to the prole from across a few Time Zones.

Sure, the concept is intriguing and bears much precedence in today’s frustrating economic climate. But as a science-fiction film, however, In Time isn’t entirely convincing.

For instance, let’s examine the idea that people can transfer time between each other through touch. How can this touch determine who is the giver of time and who is the recipient? How can it calculate exactly how much time is given? What happens if people are walking hand in hand (as Will and Sylvia do several times throughout)? Is there a withdrawal here, as well?

Never mind the space and time leaps between the Time Zones, locations that curiously become smaller as the film accelerates to a climax, but the premise feels utterly incomplete. This universe is a very elementary deconstruction of the disparity between rich and poor, and is not examined with the depth that one would expect from the man who wrote The Truman Show.

It doesn’t help that the cast is mostly flat: neither Timberlake nor Seyfried infuse their characters with a lot of grit, while Niccol’s exposition-heavy script offers little backstory to help them out. Sylvia's disobedience toward her father is hardly explored until she transforms into a Robin Hood surrogate later on, deciding to sell the time from her father’s business to the lower classes.

The youthful cast, chosen to suit the film’s genetic code, make the damaged ghettos look more like a Teen Beat cover spread than a postmodern dystopia. Unfortunately, the only ones with any gravitas onscreen are Murphy and Kartheiser, although they are also victims of the thin characterization.

The ideas that In Time presents are simple yet intriguing, but Niccol’s film falters because it spends too much time outlining the convoluted ideas and not enough time making us care for the people it affects. It’s a timely film, but not a very good one.

What Has She Done to Deserve This?

The Skin I Live In

*** out of ****

Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes and Jan Cornet

Running time: 117 minutes

The Skin I Live In, the latest melodramatic thriller from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, features a simple story, but also one that is quite hard to stomach.

Although he has been making films since the early 1980s, this is only the second film from the writer/director to be based on a previously written work—which explains why the filmmaker, highly regarded for his complex storytelling, relies on stripped down, straightforward suspense here.

The story is deceptively simple, although the genius lies in how the exposition is revealed. The film freely jumps back and forth between 2006 and 2012, and focuses on Dr. Robert Ledgard (played by Antonio Banderas), a wealthy and renowned surgeon living in Toledo. (Antxón Gómez's production design for Ledgard's glass laboratory and his mansion's exquisite art-deco interiors is terrific.)

Ledgard is hailed by the scientific community for his breakthroughs with face transplants, but shunned when a new artificial skin, Gal, named after his late wife, is discovered to be moulded with animal genomes.

A precise and careful surgeon, Ledgard knows he would be criticized even further if any of his peers stepped inside his isolated mansion. There, he houses a captive, a lady named Vera Cruz (Elena Anaya), who is dressed in only a body stocking and wearing a head bandage.

At times, Vera treats her master coldly, particularly when she confronts the doctor about how he monitors her with a camera (he watches her with an unsettling, voyeuristic gaze that would get Hitchcock’s approval). At other times, she is eager to fall into his arms and submit to him with animalistic desire.

I could delve further into the bizarre relationship between the doctor and his patient, but since the story builds much of its intrigue from a surprising plot development that has been unwittingly spoiled in several publications, I will not.

But this I will have no regrets confessing: the truths that The Skin I Live In uncovers in its final act are creepy and deeply amoral. It exposes two monsters with intense psychological issues

Banderas and Anaya are fascinating to watch, both menacing yet controlled. However, after the central plot twist is revealed, Almodóvar should have pressed a bit harder: as fractured as Banderas is on the inside, the revelation questions some of his character’s motives.

Regardless, Almodóvar is a filmmaker who you can always rely on for three things: splashy colours, a seductive soundtrack and characters with major identity crises. He doesn’t disappoint with his signatures here, although the reds are bloody, the strings ring with suspense (another ode to Hitchcock) and characters work with clothing, masks and other disguises to reiterate the complacency and complexity of human identity.

Adapted from a chilling novel by French writer Thierry Jonquet, The Skin I Live In has a twisted kinkiness that don’t stray very far from some of the writer/director’s more explicit features (see Matador, Bad Education). While it’s far from Almodóvar’s most complex film, his foray into psychological horror - think of it as the equivalent of a Human Centipede soap opera - is one of his boldest and most daring dissections of violence and sexuality yet.

Beer and Boating in Puerto Rico

The Rum Diary

** out of ****

Directed by: Bruce Robinson

Starring: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli and Giovanni Ribisi

Running time: 119 minutes

On the surface, Hunter S. Thompson is a writer whose (mis)adventures seem like a perfect fit for the big screen. Often hailed as the creator of gonzo journalism, which blurs the non-fiction, objective aspects of a story with the more exaggerated fictions of the author’s making, Thompson’s penchant for substance abuse and his biting, sardonic social commentary have made him a literary icon, especially since his death in 2005.

But what may be poetically provocative on the page doesn't translate well onto celluloid. Terry Gilliam's adaptation of the author's masterwork, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, captured Thompson's salty, drug-raddled visions but not his voice. In The Rum Diary, his ramblings are there but the narrative arc is incoherent and becomes ultimately worthless.

In both films, Thompson is portrayed by Johnny Depp, once a close friend of the late journalist. Depp ratcheted up the lunacy in Las Vegas, but he is more subdued and gentle here as Paul Kemp, a Thompson surrogate.

Kemp travels to the bustling tropicana of San Juan, Puerto Rico, to work on an English-language newspaper that is, as its grumpy, toupeed editor (played by Richard Jenkins) puts it, “on its way out.” Regardless, Kemp still takes up residence with two reporters with a lifetime subscription to hard alcohol: a slouched but diligent writer named Bob Sala (Michael Rispoli), and a rum-infested leech named Moberg (played with bewildering, hungover gusto by Giovanni Ribisi) who never met a bottle he couldn’t choke down within minutes.

Beyond developing a taste for stronger liquors, Kemp becomes smitten with the ravishing, beach-blonde Chenault (Amber Heard). But she belongs to an arrogant businessman, Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), who calls upon the struggling journalist to write favourably about a transaction he has made to transform Puerto Rico into a resort paradise for wealthy tourists.

Kemp sees the island as a spot for decay while Sanderson revels in how he has “an ocean of money” looming on the horizon. But, like most of the thread-bound episodes from The Rum Diary, this entry doesn’t amount to very much.

I don’t mind episodic narratives if the loosely connected ideas holding them all together are bound with a destination and purpose. But these colourful tales don’t have much bearing on the protagonist and The Rum Diary rarely builds momentum. It casually wanders from one set-piece to the next, as diary entries often do, but they never sum into a worthwhile whole.

Regardless, the performances keep us enthralled: Depp is casual and far more restrained than some of the loopier characters he had embodied since his catapult to the A-list this past decade, which allows him the chance to add gravitas and even light humour to the bizarre events happening around him. He offers his co-stars plenty of opportunities to rejoice in intoxicating spouts of energy – Rispoli and Ribisi are particularly strong as his compadres – and Amber Heard is an undeniable screen presence, glowing with a classic 1950s allure.

Like Heard, the film looks sumptuous, with its nifty aerial photography offerring sparkling views of red Chevrolets and gorgeous blue waters. But the sour psyche of Hunter S. Thomspon, the drawing factor of any text reliant on the late journalist’s hysterical brilliance, is too dry and dilluted. In The Rum Diary, the Puerto Rican inhabitants aren’t the only things that get wasted.