Month: November 2020

[Early Review] Uncle Frank (2020)

Director: Alan Ball
Cast: Paul Bettany, Sophia Lillis, Peter Macdissi, Judy Greer, Steve Zahn, Lois Smith, Margo Martindale, Stephen Root
Screenplay: Alan Ball
95 mins. Rated R for language, some sexual references and drug use.

On first look, the poster for Uncle Frank didn’t really win me over. It wasn’t until I saw the cast list and realized that it was written and directed by Alan Ball (Towelhead). Now, that got me interested. I’ve been a big fan of Ball’s work in the television field with shows like Six Feet Under and True Blood, and I really enjoyed his screenplay for American Beauty, but I hadn’t heard of Uncle Frank at all until seeing this poster, usually a bad sign. I was hesitant but intrigued as I prepared for this screening (thank you to Amazon for letting me stream the film in advance from my home), but I’m pleased to say that Uncle Frank is one of the best movies of the year.

Told from the perspective of young college-bound Beth Bledsoe (Sophia Lillis, It, TV’s I Am Not Okay with This), the film is a recounting of the events of 1973, in which she traveled back home to attend her grandfather’s funeral with her uncle Frank (Paul Bettany, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Solo: A Star Wars Story). Frank is heading toward the reunion with trepidation. He’s a homosexual, and he’s been keeping his secret for years. His family doesn’t know, and his deceased father hated him. Frank’s journey is further complicated when he is join by his partner Wally (Peter Macdissi, The Losers, TV’s Six Feet Under). As Beth attempts to understand her uncle in this new way, she sees him heading for a confrontation with his past.

I love a good family drama with enough dry wit to keep the tone bubbling, and that’s something that Alan Ball excels with. Uncle Frank is like the best of the family dinner episodes of Six Feet Under, where awkwardness and drama hold hands at the table and force everyone to air their dirty laundry. His writing is witty, his emotional beats pack a punch, and his direction is very character-focused. Ball’s camera is laser-focused on the character interactions and he lets them drive his story, and while that story has been told before, it’s done so here with a sense of joy that these types of stories don’t often get. You can critique the occasional schmaltz of the narrative, but I really needed that, and the catharsis is both interesting and relatable, proving that it isn’t the story you tell, but how you tell it, that matters.

Paul Bettany has always had the ability to disappear in the role by mixing elements of the written character with his own natural charisma, but as Frank, he plays it so well that you forget he’s even acting. It’s hard to even call his work a performance because it’s so real that I couldn’t find the theatricality behind it. Perhaps that’s because he is so well-paired with the overly-theatrical Peter Macdissi as Wally, Frank’s secret partner. The two have such tremendous chemistry, and Macdissi is much less hard-edged than I’ve seen him in other work, that the dramedy mined from their relationship just feels lived-in.

I was also impressed with Sophia Lillis, who burst onto the scene back in 2017 with It and the 2019 sequel. Oftentimes, you wonder if these younger actors have the experience to flourish as they select new projects, but Lillis proved to be capable in commanding the screen with more well-known performers. The rest of the supporting cast is filled with veteran performers all giving solid supporting work, from the always underrated Steve Zahn (War for the Planet of the Apes, Tall Girl), as Frank’s brother Mike, to the sharp-tongued Margo Martindale (August: Osage County, The Kitchen) as Frank’s mother.

Uncle Frank does not reinvent the wheel. This story has been told many times, and yet, under the strong screenwriting hand of Alan Ball, and with his keen attention to character, this story is a lovely and sometimes joyful but always poignant story that deserves being told again. While I wished we got to see more of the journey to the funeral (it sells itself as a road movie but spends a lot less time in transit), I was still entranced from beginning to end. See this movie. It just might be one of my favorites of the year.

4.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

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[Early Review] Sound of Metal (2019)

Director: Darius Marder
Cast: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Lauren Ridloff, Mathieu Amalric
Screenplay: Darius Marder, Abraham Marder
130 mins. Rated R.

Sound of Metal has had a long road on the way to being completed. Initially Derek Cianfrance had been working on a film called Metalhead, described as a docufiction, which has languished in post-production since 2009. That film will likely not see the light of day anytime soon, so one of the writers of that film, Darius Marder (Loot), has instead stepped into the director’s chair with a complete reworking of that film’s story from the ground up, crafting a new movie from the bones of Metalhead, with Cianfrance’s blessing. There was also a previous attempt at making this film in 2015 with a completely different cast, and now, after premiering in the film festival circuit last year, Sound of Metal is finally dropping on Amazon Prime in December. It’s been a long road, so is the movie any good?

The film stars Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler, Weathering With You) as Ruben, a drummer touring the nation with girlfriend and band mate Lou (Olivia Cooke, Ready Player One, Life Itself). Through several nightly concerts, Ruben begins experiencing sudden spurts of hearing loss. Ruben also learns that the cost of implants to save some of his hearing is going to run tens of thousands of dollars, money he doesn’t have. The stress of losing his most important sense has Ruben contemplating drug use again, so his sponsor sets him up at a rehab clinic for the deaf, where he begins a journey of discovery in a world without sound.

Sound of Metal is a character piece, through and through, and it doesn’t work if its central character doesn’t work. After many notable supporting roles, Riz Ahmed kills it as Ruben. There are a lot of emotional beats in this performance, from Ruben’s anxiety and stress to his emotional loneliness while at the rehab home, and in his frustrations in trying to communicate in a world without sound. Not to mention Ruben’s contemplation over drug use after years of being clean. There’s a lot happening in Ruben’s head, and then taking away the character’s ability to hear and interpret conversation in the way he is used to needs to come across realistically. Ahmed is able to handle all of these factors in a performance that is equal parts bombastic and subtle, creating a well-rounded character that isn’t always likable but always captivating.

The rest of the supporting cast is quite strong as well, most of it made up of a largely deaf group of actors. They add layers of realism to the world and help to elevate Ahmed’s performance. I was quite fond of Olivia Cooke’s work as Lou. She disappeared into the role so seamlessly that I didn’t even realize it was her, thanks to a strong level of makeup and costuming with her character. Then there’s Paul Raci (No Ordinary Hero: The SuperDeafy Movie, She Wants Me) as Joe. I don’t think I’ve seen Paul Raci in a performance before, but he was wholly captivating, and his chemistry with Ahmed was incredibly strong. Their scenes ranged from emotional to heated and sometimes both at the same time, and I was taken in by it all. All of these players just added to the sense of realism at play here.

Marder’s film does not try to dazzle with unique cinematography, it isn’t showy in its execution, but where it does stand out, from a technical perspective, is in its exemplary sound design. The way in which the sound is given to us as viewers and then taken away to put us in Ruben’s headspace is some truly powerful work in forcing us to confront the problems he is encountering with him. This element, combined with the choice not to utilize subtitles for the ASL scenes until Ruben begins to understand them help to put us in the character’s shoes in a way that left me in awe.

Sound of Metal is a hard watch, I’m not aching to see it again, but Darius Marder’s film really drives home life’s way of surprising us. It’s a story about coming to terms with unpredictability on our individual journeys, and for me, it broke my heart to see Ruben consistently struggle throughout the film. It’s an introspective movie, one that I very much recommend.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

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