Breathing Lessons

The Sessions

*** out of ****

Directed by: Ben Lewin

Starring: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood and Robin Weigart

Running time: 95 minutes

There are actors who make small yet lasting impressions in such a breadth of major studio films that it’s a blessing to see them get a leading role that acknowledges their gravity as a screen presence. John Hawkes is now getting that recognition.

He provided adept supporting work to young trailblazers Jennifer Lawrence and Elizabeth Olsen (in Winter’s Bone and Martha Marcy May Marlene, respectively) and received an Oscar nomination for doing so. This attention likely garnered him his first major starring role, a challenging part that looks graceful and effortless under his control, in The Sessions. He’s well positioned to garner a wealth of nominations this year.

Hawkes plays Mark O’Brien, a celebrated journalist and poet with polio who died in 1999, although the film chronicles a budding chapter in his life 11 years prior. Writer/director Ben Lewin, who contracted polio as a child, focuses on O’Brien’s quest to lose his virginity at age 38.

Strapped to a stretcher and wired into an iron lung for most of the day, O’Brien’s poetry blooms from his constricted situation. Living in his own head for much of his life, he uses writing as an outlet for expression. To type his work, he bites down on a mouth stick and uses its edge to press down on the keys of his typewriter.

A wickedly wry and honest internal voice (provided through voice-over) brings levity to the film, which won this year's Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance. Levin’s script uses O’Brien’s actual work as a portal into his trapped stance.

Nevertheless, these thoughts are also morose. As O’Brien ponders as his disapproving caretaker mopes about, he refrains that he is “always in somebody’s way.” He quickly finds a sweeter helper, Vera (Moon Bloodgood).

A magazine offers O’Brien the chance to write a series of articles on sex and the disabled. A virgin at age 38, he seeks to remedy this disposition. O'Brien tells his priest, Father Brendan (William H. Macy), that he hopes to reach sexual fulfillment since he is approaching his “used-by date.” Father Brendan is uncomfortable with being a receptacle for sexual advice, which offers some potent comic relief.

O’Brien finds a sex surrogate, a therapeutic assistant that can address his impotency who while being sensitive to his personal needs. The surrogate, Cheryl Cohen-Greene (a wonderful Helen Hunt), is kind and attentive to O'Brien but wants to keep a professional distance.

When Hunt and Hawkes are in tandem, in slightly awkward and completely naked therapy sequences, The Sessions becomes a romantic comedy with feeling, one that is both poignant and deeply funny. Their scenes together, while dynamic, only compile about 15 minutes of the film, which cuts into the evolution of the story and their relationship.

Regardless, the performances are still invigorating, especially the leading man. As the candid, wide-eyed journalist, Hawkes invite sympathy through tics of charm and nervous energy. Despite his limited mobility, he envelops a full-bodied expression and grace to the role that deters one’s attention away from O'Brien's frailty to feeling. The responses of his body during the therapy sessions soon enter his poetry.

The Sessions may be the kindest film ever released to get the brunt of his humour from situations involving premature ejaculation, but that is not a detriment to its potency as a charming, remarkable acted character drama.

It is a deeply affectionate film, but had writer/director Lewin put more emphasis on realizing the love story at the centre, The Sessions could have been a more affecting one. 

The Hollywood Option

Argo

***  out of ****

Directed by: Ben Affleck

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman and Victor Garber

Running time: 120 minutes

A stampeding mob of demonstrators besiege an embassy. American flags wave about the street, awash in flames. An inauthentic movie set in a foreign land.

Considering how these elements mirror the events surrounding the anti-Western furor recently ignited in the Middle East and Africa, it is a small miracle that Ben Affleck’s latest film is selling tickets. Based on a declassified CIA mission, Argo is an undeniably exciting, if simplistic, thriller – a film marred by a less than nuanced screenplay despite some riveting action sequences.

Keep in mind that the film is a dramatization of undercover events from the 1979 Iran hostage crisis and just go along for the ride.

When Iranian revolutionaries take over the U.S. embassy, six American hostages escape the turmoil and take up residence in the home of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber). The Iranians are unaware of their escape.

Enter CIA covert affairs specialist Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), who comes up with a bizarre and unlikely escape protocol – what his supervisor (Bryan Cranston) later refers to as the “best bad idea we have.” The plan is to have the six hostages pose as members of a Canadian film crew that is location scouting for an Arabian Nights-like sci-fi adventure called Argo. With these identities in place, the hostages can get out of the country without drawing suspicion.

Mendez meets with two self-deprecating Hollywood personalities, make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and sardonic, washed up film producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin, often hilarious). Chambers and Siegel back Argo financially and set up fake publicity to authenticate the product.

Moving between Tehran and Tinseltown, Argo is more notable for its entertainment value than its nuanced depiction of political events. The fervor ignited between Americans and Muslims is signaled in an early scene, when an American character pulls on a poster of New York City, the World Trade Center towers prominently positioned as the camera pans by.

Screenwriter Chris Terrio does a notable job of framing the dense, historical background leading up the crisis in a small pre-credits package (featuring storyboards and other movie-related materials). While context reigns, the subtext is somewhat grey.

A few scenes adopt an us-versus-them paradigm of courageous Americans and sinister Muslims that is troubling. One scene cuts between clips of Iranian figureheads threatening the livelihood of Americans as an elaborately costumed cast reads from the Argo screenplay at the Beverly Hilton; intertwined, the two parts feel equally outlandish.

To keep with reality, it is hard to tell how often Affleck maneuvers between archival news broadcasts and images, which adds credibility to the onscreen action. Like the tense, thrilling heist sequences from The Town, his previous film, Affleck keeps the action set-pieces grounded by framing closely on the humans in the midst of the violence.

When not focusing on Mendez, Argo moves between the Hollywood heralds played by Arkin and Goodman and the anxious hostages (played by a variety of excellent character actors). The honchos get more screen time than the hostages, even though it should be the other way around.

The performances, from an ensemble of fine television actors like Kyle Chandler, Chris Messina and Bryan Cranston as mostly administrative types, are uniformly good, although there are no stand-outs worthy of intense awards consideration. Unfortunately, Victor Garber is mostly absent as Ken Taylor, whose role in the actual crisis was far more momentous than how the film depicts it.

Although Affleck carries the film in an ennobling part, his character receives a small arc. The most we know about Mendez is that he is a dedicated man trying to reconcile with his son and wife that has separated from him. Argo does not glorify him, an approach that dulls a middle section as Mendez mulls around Turkey looking for film permits.

While the hero is hard to decipher, the Americans as a whole are characterized too heroically - especially when swells of uplifting music playing near the end correspond to the onscreen heralding of Western diplomatic actions, a phony touch that doesn't effectively comment on the history.

A film whose past seems present, Argo is a gripping and supremely entertaining thriller that goes down a bit too easy as it essentializes a complex political crisis.

Science Fiction Double Feature

Frankenweenie

** out of ****

Directed by: Tim Burton

Featuring the Voice Talents of: Charlie Tahan, Martin Landau, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short and Winona Ryder

Running time: 87 minutes

ParaNorman

*** out of ****

Directed by: Chris Butler and Sam Fell

Featuring the Voice Talents of: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Tucker Albrizzi and John Goodman

Running time: 93 minutes

As the leaves change hue to a Halloween orange, one late summer and one early autumn release – both remarkably alike – signal the arrival of the October holiday. Both films are aimed at families, albeit ones who enjoy the gleefully macabre and have a fondness for frightening monsters and haunted houses.

Beyond the genre, the similarities extend: both films lovingly embrace the conventions and iconography of the horror genre, focus on social outcasts with a fascination for those that are six feet under, and are dazzling pieces of stop-motion animation.

But while Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, a feature-length extension of the director’s 1984 short film deemed too scary for young audiences, is a clever throwback to classic monster mashes, it never becomes one. ParaNorman, on the other hand, is refreshingly irreverent and zips along with the wit of a strong Treehouse of Horror episode.

Burton’s film admirably pays tribute to the heyday of horror, with references to the Expressionist monster classic of the 1930s and the schlock value of mid-century B-movies. Heck, one could say that Burton and screenwriter John August even pay homage to earlier works in the director’s oeuvre.

Frankenweenie takes place in New Holland, a cozily conservative town with a massive pet cemetery. Young Victor (voiced by Charlie Tahan) spends his hours cooped up in his room making monster movies, designing the props and assembling the footage. The star of his films is Sparky, the pylon-headed family dog that is also Victor’s closest friend.

Victor’s parents (voiced by Martin Short and Catherine O’Hara) worry that their son should be more concerned with making friends and distracting himself from these home movies. However, when a car hits Sparky, killing the dog, Victor becomes more withdrawn and lonesome.

His new science teacher, the eccentric Mr. Rzykruski, enraptures Victor with thoughts of resurrection. Martin Landau provides the teacher’s voice, although the character’s face and tingly, thick accent blatantly recall horror movie icon Vincent Price.

Victor digs up Sparky’s corpse and sets up a highly mechanical laboratory in the attic on a rainy night. When lighting strikes Sparky, the dog’s muscle responds and he is born again.

At times, Frankenweenie is a direct embrace of Frankenstein, both the Mary Shelley novel and the James Whale film, from the dog next door with a similar hairdo to the monster’s bride to the protagonist’s scheming, hunchbacked companion (here, an annoyance named Edgar).

Burton lucidly draws upon the sci-fi horror genre to generate laughs and appease trivia fans. The exaggerated expressionistic features of many characters are delightfully strange – the auteur would not want it any other way – and the film is even in gaunt black-and-white, a rarity for a family film.

But Frankenweenie feels more like a collection of genre in-jokes than a refreshing jolt of entertainment, probably becomes it’s more concerned with dazzling us with icons and images the audience is already likely to be accustomed to.

The characters, while fortuitously designed, are more bland than bizarre. Victor and his parents are dull, stagnant creations, while other characters, such as a next-door neighbour voiced by Winona Ryder, does not have much of an impact on the story and little relationship to the protagonist (the friendship is merely hinted at).

Burton would rather have genre inflections lead the story than wield to the whims of the characters; unfortunately, unlike the title character, Frankenweenie never comes to life.

That lack of vitality and flair cannot be said of ParaNorman, a film that succeeds at doing what Frankenweenie wished it could: balancing somber themes of death and the afterlife with sly humour.

Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), like Victor in the previous film, is a social outcast that is obsessed with monster movies and the afterlife. However, his lack of friends is not due to his own insipidness, but because he can see and speak with dead people (including his own recently deceased grandmother). The townspeople gape at his interactions with ghosts, grimy green creations that the audience can also perceive.

However, Norman starts seeing bad omens of evil forces creeping up on the townspeople and decides to investigate their source. It belongs to a witch’s curse brought upon his town, Blithe Hollow, 300 years ago that will be unleashed on the anniversary of her death.

Our young protagonist must help to vanquish the curse before the undead rise and feed on Blithe Hollow’s inhabitants. Norman gets some much-needed help from superficial sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick), cheery and overweight best friend Neil (Tucker Albrizzi) and school bully Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). 

ParaNorman restricts many of the supporting characters to their tropes for the first half and only lets these creations breathe as functioning people as the frantically paced story throttles forward and the threat of peril rises.

However, a gleefully macabre spirit permeates through the film, from lights touches such as Norman’s ringtone (a familiar horror movie theme) and oodles of visual humour. For instance, the zombies move at a rate that parallels the small increments that clay-mation creations move in that deliberate animation process.

This chipper sense of humour, more dialogue-based than slapstick, keeps the playful energy up. However, this humour is balanced out with an especially moving final act that explores the connections between the protagonist and the spirit he plans to vanquish.

Between Frankenweenie and ParaNorman, the latter film is more suited to become a family-friendly Halloween classic: although bumpy in places, it is more intricate in character, story and atmosphere, while meditating on dark themes with greater poignancy. 

It's Not Going to Stop / 'Til You Wise Up

The Master

**** out of ****

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Laura Dern and Jesse Plemons

Running time: 137 minutes

I am a subscriber to the church of Paul Thomas Anderson, the wunderkind writer/director of Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. His latest film, The Master, is full of mesmerizing performances, exquisite characterization and an accomplished technical precision that one seldom sees on the big screen anymore – or, what is expected from one of cinema’s most strikingly original storytellers.

The Master also marks the fiery return of actor Joaquin Phoenix. He portrays erratic alcoholic Freddie Quell, a naval officer trying to adjust to life away from the shores of World War II. Freddie’s mind is frequently at sea – momentary flashbacks linger on the shiny blues of the ocean, a space of salvation that quells his irrational behaviour.

Detached from the limelight of America in the early 1950s and lost amidst the era’s mores of conservative normalcy, the Salinger-esque figure wanders away from one society and finds refuge in another. While walking around one night while drunk, he boards a boat commanded by a chivalrous, charismatic preacher of sorts named Lancaster Dodd (a mighty Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Dodd takes Freddie under his wing and becomes his spiritual commander, hoping to guide the lost, impressionable soul to nirvana. He is the leader of The Cause, a philosophical movement group that is gaining followers. In the film’s most arresting scene, Dodd submits Freddie to an intense, prolonged session of psychological questioning – what the leader terms “formal processing” – that reveals the traumas of the subject’s life.

Despite the harsh overtones of Dodd’s coldly devout wife, Peggy (Amy Adams), who is deeply concerned about the rage coming from her husband’s new friend, Freddie stays on as a follower, convinced that The Cause can save him from misery and help him find his way on solid ground. However, the process to remove sensations from the rough-edged rascal proves to be arduous for both men.

Although the copyright scrawl at the end of the credits insists that the characters bear no resemblance to real people, Dodd has many similarities to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The Cause, a hackneyed belief system that focuses on capturing one’s current negative impulses to send that soul back to a state of perfection, may also sound somewhat familiar.

Phoenix is electrifying as the bottled barbaric working to extol his sins. The actor’s tight, disgruntled face masks the character’s simmering wounds to an extent, yet fissures of this aggression erupt in heated convocations with other characters.

Hoffman is just as assured a screen presence but his performance is almost sedate in comparison to Phoenix’s petulant wrath. He portrays Dodd with both an aura of profound wisdom and demure casualness, while compressing a similar rage and distaste for those who don’t align with his views.

Unlike Quell, the audience is only offered hints toward the pain that brought that character down the path to preach righteousness. However, strong supporting work from Amy Adams, fierce and unquivering in moments where she confronts her husband’s burrowed demons, hints that her character may be the master behind the exalted iconoclast.

Mastery is also abound in the film’s technical strongholds, from the choppy dissonance of Jonny Greenwood’s score, orchestrated to reflect Freddie’s tattered psyche, to the period-perfect art and costume design (courtesy of David Frank and Jack Fisk, as well as Mark Bridges). Further, the rhythms of Leslie Jones and Peter McNulty’s superb editing lingers on the raw, unhinged performances, unwilling to cut away.

As with Anderson’s other films, The Master looks at the dysfunction and unlikely reconciliation of a father-son dynamic. The director has explored the themes of incongruent family relationships in Magnolia and There Will Be Blood, while the latter film also dealt with the conflicting ideologies of avarice and faith.

The Master’s tricky power dynamics frequently shift between Freddie languishing under Dodd’s sway and the latter’s psyche becoming dominated by his protégé’s animalistic desire and sexual swells. If Freddie is an id personality, than Dodd is the superego, striving to alter his friend's desires and point his moral compass toward the sea.

Although the titular master’s identity may be up for debate, Anderson’s status as one certainly isn’t. His bold and bizarre journey into postwar American identity is a captivating and complex character study, as well as the year’s best, most daring film.

Pulpy Science Fiction

Looper

***½ out of ****

Directed by: Rian Johnson

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano and Jeff Daniels

Running time: 118 minutes

At one moment early in Looper, a character refers to our hero, Joe Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), as one with “20th century affectations.” Joe dresses like a detective out of a Dashiell Hammett novel and sleeks down the road in a vintage car – quite striking for 2044, the year the film is set in.

But that phrase could have been summing up the sensibilities of writer/director Rian Johnson, whose first two films were Brick, a modern-day high school film where the characters speak like those from hardboiled detective novels, and The Brothers Bloom, a little-seen but enormously clever caper flick with the zip of a Preston Sturges screwball comedy.

Johnson is a director making very original, modern works out of antiquated genres. It is refreshing to see a creative mind so thoroughly invested in constructing a new treat from preserved elements and seeing how the results stitch together. His latest film retreats into the future yet still feels undeniably classic, as if it could have taken place a century earlier.

However, for the time being, it takes place in 2044. Thirty years from then, time travel exists but is outlawed. A future criminal enterprise still uses time machines to dispose of bodies, however, by zapping those people they want to eliminate back to the past, where paid assassins are ready to kill them. Those assassins are called loopers and each one lives in prestige while tent cities sprout up in the streets around them.

One of these loopers is the aforementioned old-fashioned Joe. Equipped with a short-range weapon (nicknamed a “blunderbuss”) in an empty Kansas cornfield on a solemn afternoon, Joe gets a surprise when he comes face-to-face with himself. The target that has been sent back in time to be disposed of is Joe from 30 years into the future.

Old Joe is played by Bruce Willis. A crafty makeup team applied much cosmetic to Gordon-Levitt, puffing up his cheeks and horseshoe eyebrows while sinking his eyes to resemble the action star's.

Old Joe is out on his own revenge plot while Young Joe pursues him, to avoid sacrificing one of the basic rules of the job – never let your target escape. Johnson wisely spends the first 15 minutes setting up the logistics of his futuristic universe and then lets the characters drive the rest of his story, so that the audience is more concerned with understanding their deeper motivations than on trying to piece apart the time travel paradoxes.

Young Joe, like your archetypal sleuth figure, is drug-addled, miserable and having serious caveats about the dangers of his job. A vagrant past has left him lonely and scarred. Old Joe – first introduced in a thrilling if all too brief flash-forward montage – knows that the future is still grim for his younger counterpart.

A diner-set confrontation between the Joes halfway through the film lets both actors dictate the terms. Gordon-Levitt is compelling as the troubled killer who is smoothly losing his grip on his self-control.

Meanwhile, Willis is just as strong (along with Moonrise Kingdom, this has been a stellar year for him). By embodying a man who has not been granted the solace that he once yearned for, Willis is mining deep territory with this role, one which he brings surprising amounts of empathy to.

Audiences can still see Willis unleash the “Yippee-Ki-Yay” during an exhilarating climactic action sequence. But this is a film more concerned with how the characters contemplate their own time – hence the frequent watches and clocks found throughout – than with traveling through dimensions of time. Looper is both an absorbing character drama and richly satisfying pulp pleasure.