Tag: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

[#2020oscardeathrace] Marriage Story (2019)

Director: Noah Baumbach

Cast: Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Julie Hagerty, Merritt Wever

Screenplay: Noah Baumbach

137 mins. Rated R for language throughout and sexual references.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Motion Picture of the Year [PENDING]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role [Scarlett Johansson] [PENDING]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role [Adam Driver] [PENDING]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role [Laura Dern] [PENDING]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Original Screenplay [PENDING]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) [PENDING]

IMDb Top 250: #194 (as of 1/14/2020)

 

It must be a pretty good feeling to live in the Baumbach/Gerwig household right now, with writer/director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, The Meyerowitz Stories) and his wife, writer/director Greta Gerwig, both having films in the Best Picture race for Marriage Story and Little Women, respectively. It definitely raises the odds for them.

Marriage Story is the tale of a marriage at its end, focusing on the downward spiral between husband and wife Charlie (Adam Driver, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Dead Don’t Die) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson, Her, Sing). It’s also a love story that uses the pain of divorce to highlight the beautiful moments that the relationship gave them both. As Charlie starts to see the mistakes he makes with not listening to his wife’s needs, Nicole finds herself down the career path she’s always wanted, and they find that they are going in different directions. Charlie struggles to find adequate representation for the divorce proceedings while Nicole hires a shark attorney, Nora (Laura Dern, Jurassic Park, TV’s Big Little Lies). While Charlie and Nicole both want the process to go as painlessly as possible, they find that they are in a system designed to turn their divorce into a war zone.

Marriage Story accomplishes something that is incredible in its storytelling, but it also makes it look easy. Baumbach is able to tell a story about divorce that is, at its core, a love story. Similar to how Taika Waititi told a story about hate that became a story about love with Jojo Rabbit, Baumbach is able to use tragic circumstances to really show how powerful its inverse is. Using his own real-life divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh as a guide, he crafts a screenplay that gives us equal moments of sadness and joy, and his direction is simple enough to focus on his powerhouse performers.

Speaking of powerhouses, I love that everyone in the film is firing on all cylinders here. Driver and Johansson have such great chemistry and they don’t try to out-act the other, instead letting each other have their moments of grandness amidst the strain, struggle, and fighting. There’s a scene near the end of the film that features the two stars in a contentious conversation that is one of the most well-acted scenes of the decade.

Even the supporting cast is spectacular. From the likely-winner Best Supporting Actress Laura Dern to Ray Liotta (Goodfellas, TV’s Shades of Blue) and Alan Alda (Bridge of Spies, TV’s M*A*S*H) who play potential lawyers for Charlie, everyone in this film is pitch-perfect, and again, none of them are competing for the spotlight. That’s key here. Everyone is as good as they need to be while also supporting the other players. It’s a real teamwork-heavy acting showcase.

Marriage Story is not a happy film even if it is a beautiful one. It plays with the inverse of a marriage crumbling but also seeing all the beauty that the marriage brought in a fascinating way. With an opening that feels like Pixar’s Up, this movie should have had investors from Kleenex because it will break your heart and then tape it back together. While it runs a little longer than it needs to be, it’s a fascinating case study of a relationship that I cannot recommend enough.

 

4.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

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[#2019oscardeathrace] The Wife (2017)

Director: Bjorn Runge

Cast: Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Max Irons, Harry Lloyd, Annie Starke, Elizabeth McGovern

Screenplay: Jane Anderson

99 mins. Rated R for language and some sexual content.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role [Glenn Close] [Pending]

 

The Wife is a movie that has slipped by unnoticed by the public and, if not for the nomination of Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction, Father Figures), it may have disappeared entirely. I was well-aware of the love that has been thrown her way for this performance, so I hunted down a copy of the film knowing very little about it. The question being lobbed around by film pundits and critics is whether or not Close was nominated for her performance in the film or her career.

Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce, Tomorrow Never Dies, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote) has just been informed that he is to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. His wife, Joan (Close) is overjoyed for her husband, and the two depart for Stockholm. As the ceremony draws closer, Joan confronts her choices in her life that led her to this point as she is pursued by a frustrated biographer, Nathanial Bone (Christian Slater, True Romance, TV’s Mr. Robot), searching for the couple’s secret.

The question of whether or not Close’s performance is worthy is a simple one: it is. Now, I wouldn’t say she gives the best performance of the year, but hers is a role filled with emotion and visual flair. She acts with her eyes in a sometimes muted performance that flows with regret and frustration in what could be called a late mid-life crisis as the secrets of her past come forth. It’s an incredibly moving story marred by historical and cultural shifts. I felt myself emotionally broken watching Joan as she discovers what she’s been missing with her own life. I won’t get into specifically spoilery territory but it is something to watch her bare her soul.

Merit should also be given to Pryce and Slater for their terrific turns. Slater is engaging and secretive, always holding his cards close. His performance is similar to the small bit he played in Interview with the Vampire. Pryce, though, is multi-layered, a man with regrets of his own who has seemingly lost touch with himself and doesn’t see the world through a realistic lens. His isn’t a likable character for the most part, but his is definitely an understandable character. What’s fascinating about the duality between Pryce’s Joe and Close’s Joan is just how close they are to each other while being two sides of the same coin. There are shades of both husband and wife in each of us.

Outside of the production design and sets, there isn’t a whole lot of technical flair to the film. Director Bjorn Runge (Daybreak, Happy End) tends to let his focus stick to the characters. The screenplay from Jane Anderson (Olive Kitteridge, Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson) is elegant and slowly burns to an intense and emotional finale, one that stayed with me long after leaving the theater.

The Wife isn’t flashy or visually evocative in the way that so many films are. It is beautiful and nuanced and the type of film that most people aren’t likely to see. That shouldn’t take away from the story and the characters which are well-performed and heartbreakingly realistic. This is a film I would implore you to see as soon as you can.

 

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

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[#2018oscardeathrace] I, Tonya (2017)

Director: Craig Gillespie

Cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Jullianne Nicholson, Bobby Canavale

Screenplay: Steven Rogers

120 mins. Rated R for pervasive language, violence, and some sexual content/nudity.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Margot Robbie) [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Allison Janney) [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Film Editing [Pending]

 

Passion for a project can do amazing things. Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad, Goodbye Christopher Robin) cared so deeply for I, Tonya that she was able to push the film forward and, arguably, is why the film is nominated for Oscars. Originally, it was going to take the limited approach which would have made it ineligible for Academy Award consideration. But Robbie knew there was something to this film, and so she fought for it. Is it worth it?

I, Tonya tells the true-ish story of Tonya Harding (Robbie), her romantic relationship, or lack thereof, with Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan, Captain America: Civil War, Logan Lucky), and her family life with mother LaVona (Allison Janney, The Help, TV’s Mom) stretching from early life to the events surrounding the violent assault of Nancy Kerrigan.

The strongest elements of I, Tonya are its performances, specifically Robbie, Stan, and Janney. This trifecta makes the film wholly likable and erases some of its flaws. Robbie and Janney are worthy of their Oscar nominations, and Stan is rightly left off the supporting actor race because there are just better performances for 2017. Janney is going to win this one, though. Her darkly disturbed take on LaVona is one of the best of the decade.

Steven Rogers (Hope Floats, Love the Coopers) churned out a screenplay that ended up on the Black List and rightfully so. His usage of fourth-wall breaks is really cool. The only flaw is that I would’ve wanted to see more. It’s a technique that feels underused. It would have been better to use it more or not at all. I  also love that he uses faux documentary footage to tell the story, and seeing the three stars talk right to the audience is a lot of fun. His usage of the unreliable narrator here is really solid.

I, Tonya has a few glaring flaws, but it’s a lot more fun than most other character pieces in 2017. I was thrilled and astounded all throughout the film. It proves that Margot Robbie is so much more than her looks. She is driven, skilled, and entertaining and I, Tonya is just a step on her path to success in her career. See I, Tonya.

 

3.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

 

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[#2018oscardeathrace] The Post (2017)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys

Screenplay: Liz Hannah, Josh Singer

116 mins. Rated PG-13 for language and brief war violence.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Motion Picture of the Year [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role [Meryl Streep] [Pending]

 

Only Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan, The BFG) could accomplish The Post in the time that he did. The film went through Production, Post-Production, and Release just in the Post-Production of his Ready Player One, the other film he was working on. Not only that, but to have that film go on to be nominated for Best Picture is exemplary.

The Post is the story of Kay Graham (Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady, Florence Foster Jenkins), the owner and publisher of The Washington Post, and Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump, Toy Story 3), the editor-in-chief as they come to a decision on how to proceed with the publishing of sensitive materials pertaining to a cover-up spanning four U.S. Presidents. As the weight of the decision falls on Kay, she is met with arguments on both sides and mounting tensions that could send multiple colleagues to prison for treason or ruin The Post’s reputation permanently.

For the most part, The Post is exactly what it needs to be, and it works very well. I really like the usage of Nixon’s actual audio in his portrayal. I loved how it leads right up to the opening of All the President’s Men, which almost makes The Post an unofficial prequel.

But the best part of The Post is its performances. Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks are amazing, but its supporting players are equally strong. I would have loved to see Bob Odenkirk (Girlfriend’s Day, TV’s Better Call Saul) nab an Oscar nomination for his work as Ben Bagdikian. The same should be said of Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight) as Robert McNamara.

The script is mostly strong and Spielberg has restrained and calm direction to give the floor to his performers which works. One sequence that doesn’t work is the opening. The film begins in Vietnam with an action sequence that feels very out of place. Perhaps it would work better somewhere else in the film as a flashback because it feels unneeded and very disconnected from the rest of the film.

Overall, The Post is a fine film and very important to the political landscape we are currently in. Is it a Best Picture? I’m not so sure. That being said, Spielberg’s film is very worthy of a lot of its credit. This is a need-to-see film.

 

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

 

For my review of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, click here.

For my review of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, click here.

For my review of Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, click here.

 

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[#2017oscardeathrace] La La Land (2016)

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Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Rosemarie DeWitt, John Legend

Screenplay: Damien Chazelle

128 mins. Rated PG-13 for some language.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Motion Picture of the Year [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Ryan Gosling) [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Emma Stone) [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Directing [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Original Screenplay [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Cinematography [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Film Editing [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Production Design [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Costume Design [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) “City of Stars” [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Sound Mixing [Pending]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Sound Editing [Pending]

IMDb Top 250: #41 (as of 2/5/2017)

 

Now we get to the biggie. La La Land matched the record at this year’s Oscar nomination celebration with 14 nominations. Now, it technically could only win 13 because of its double nomination for Original Song, but all the same, it looks to be a possible sweep of many awards on the upcoming awards night.

La La Land (2016) Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone)

Sebastian (Ryan Gosling, Drive, The Nice Guys) is a jazz musician looking to start his own club when he meets Mia (Emma Stone, The Help, Aloha), an aspiring actress currently shuffling coffee on a set while searching out her big break. The two are initially at odds, but their friendship soon blooms into romance as they discover a passion for the art within each other, but they soon find that the path of the artist is a narrow one and there isn’t always space for two to walk it together in the newest film from writer/director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench).

La La Land is a film that takes everything learned from Whiplash and uses it to push the boundaries of filmmaking, and Chazelle is an amazing artist who has crafted a modern musical masterpiece. The film also displays a common theme in Chazelle’s work, a dour but realistic representation of the costs to being an artist. It is a prevalent theme in Whiplash and only further pushes in La La Land.

Gosling and Stone have terrific chemistry, having worked previously together in Crazy Stupid Love and Gangster Squad. These two are destined to be one of the great romantic duos of our age. Their performances together are brilliant. Gosling also gives great work with John Legend (Soul Men, Loverboy) who appears in the film as colleague Keith. Gosling learned piano for the film while Legend learned guitar.

The difference here from, let’s say, Fences, is that La La Land is focused on the relationship but has the style to elevate the film to another level, whereas Fences only focuses on the relationship. Chazelle’s direction is almost another character, aided by top-notch cinematography, set design, and film editing.

Chazelle also takes the risky route with his finale, presenting a unique and interesting twist on this love story that may not win everyone over, but I love how it presents an ending that felt authentic but also hit on everything my inner romantic wanted from this film. The ending has its roots in the musical community and is nothing we haven’t seen before, but it just works so damn well here.

Lastly, I need to touch on the music, particularly “Audition (The Fools Who Dream” and “City of Stars,” both songs very worthy of their nominations. While I loved the opening number, it doesn’t have the emotional hit that these two songs have. I personally have my vote down for “Audition” but I wouldn’t mind a win for either.

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La La Land is going to take the awards this year, but I’m not certain about Best Picture just yet. Even so, it is a powerhouse film destined to be a classic for years to come. Even if you don’t love musicals, give it a try.

 

4.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

 

So have you seen La La Land? What did you think? What was your favorite number? Let me know/Drop a comment below!

 

 

For my review of Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, click here.

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[#2016oscardeathrace] Brooklyn (2015)

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Director: John Crowley

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Emory Cohen, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters

Screenplay: Nick Hornby

111 mins. Rated PG-13 for a scene of sexuality and brief strong language.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Motion Picture of the Year
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role [Saoirse Ronan]
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay

 

It seems that every Oscar season, a film comes along, usually with a Best Picture nomination, that I just don’t think will be any good. Some years, I get pleasantly surprised (thinking Philomena here) and other years, I get The Grand Budapest Hotel (which, I get it, many of you enjoyed, but I most certainly did not). This year, that film was Brooklyn. But do I have a winner here or more of the dreckish variety?

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Brooklyn features Saoirse Ronan (Atonement, Lost River) as Eilis, an Irish immigrant living in Brooklyn in the 1950s. The film follows her leaving of Ireland and learning to adapt to the American lifestyle. It also shows her finding love in Tony (Emory Cohen, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Gambler), a nice young Italian man she meets, and how their relationship is tested by her family, her situation, and her past. In comes Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson, Ex Machina, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) as a more comfortable alternative to Tony and Eilis finds herself in a painful position where one heart is destined to be broken.

Brooklyn feels from the surface like a film we’ve seen before, and in fact, from the very beginning, I was doubting its ability to keep me interested. Indeed, it did take me about 10 minutes to be absolutely sucked in, and I was. The film’s pacing picked up almost immediately and didn’t drop off.

Saoirse Ronan commands the screen in her portrayal of Eilis, a young woman torn between the promises and duties she has been tasked in life. Eilis is a woman who doesn’t not own her life at the beginning, but she learns to take charge in order to survive.

Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson play two perfectly opposite sides of the coin, each presenting Eilis with an entirely different complete with pros on cons. Both actors seek to aid Nick Hornby’s (An Education, Wild) excellent screenplay.

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Lastly, the musical score is a beautiful bow to place on this film, which pollinates multiple genres without truly sticking with just one. Brooklyn is a wonderfully nuanced and performed film with a terrific script backing it up. Saoirse Ronan may not walk away with the trophy for her work here, but Brooklyn is another great showcase of the young actress’s multi-layered skills.

 

4.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

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[Oscar Madness Monday] Still Alice (2014)

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Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland

Cast: Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parish

Screenplay: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland

101 mins. Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, and brief language including a sexual reference.

  • Academy Award Winner: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role [Julianne Moore]

 

Well, there simply aren’t enough days during Oscar season to talk about movies. There aren’t. So, on the occasion when I feel like it, I’ll be talking with you on some Mondays about films the Academy has deemed worthy of admiration. Today, an Oscar winner from this most recent awards ceremony: Still Alice. So let’s begin.

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Alice Howland (Julianne Moore, The Big Lebowski, Freeheld), a brilliant linguistics professor, lives for her mind. Her world is that much more shattered when she is diagnosed with Early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Now Alice must learn to lean on her family, including caring husband John (Alec Baldwin, The Departed, Aloha) and strained daughter Lydia (Kristen Stewart, Twilight, American Ultra) as she slowly loses the parts of her that make up who she is.

Still Alice isn’t a perfect film. It has faults, to be sure. I find that the runtime could be shortened. A few of the character arcs are believable. A few of the story points are cliché. But none of that really matters.

This is Julianne Moore’s film. She controls the screen in perhaps her most captivating roles. She takes viewers on a journey with her as we see Alice slowly deteriorate in front of her family’s eyes. Seeing her in her place of zen, a cabin by the beach with husband John, struggling to remember where the bathroom is. The scene is heartbreaking. There is a difficult and triumphant sequence in which Alice attempts to give a speech on her disease. Her character’s emotional and physical transformations are on full display, and Moore’s nuanced performance carries this film, so much so that the problems I encountered bothered me a lot less.

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Still Alice is one of those difficult movies. Like Precious or 12 Years a Slave, it isn’t a film I like to watch. That doesn’t stop it from being an important and challenging piece, moving in its own right. Julianne Moore owns the screen and her statue due to an unparalleled and unstoppable command of the craft.

 

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

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The Theory of Everything (2014)

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Director: James Marsh

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones

Screenplay: Andrew McCarten

123 mins. Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and suggestive material.

  • Academy Award Winner: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Eddie Redmayne)
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Motion Picture of the Year
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Felicity Jones)
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score

 

In The Theory of Everything, Eddie Redmayne (Les Miserables, Jupiter Ascending) portrays Stephen Hawking in the years chronicling his debilitating disease and the unstoppable will of the human mind as his relationship with eventual wife Jane (Felicity Jones, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, True Story) heads through its most difficult steps.

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Eddie Redmayne absolutely perfects the art of becoming a human being in his portrayal of Mr. Hawking. There are so many times when I watched this movie and forgot I was watching a movie. His performance is so layered with emotional resonance, even as his disease progresses, that it becomes difficult to discern when he is speaking his lines from when his eyes convey his communication.

Felicity Jones provides pretty great, though somewhat overshadowed, work as Jane Hawking, a woman tortured by promises and unbeatable devotion to her husband. These two have tremendous chemistry.

Director James Marsh begins his films with breathtaking visuals symbolizing Hawking’s great mind but it eventually fades away which is sad as I found it to be a wholly engaging bit of visual spectacle that threads the movie together in an almost mystical way.

The Oscar-nominated score is an engaging one, a numeric tone of simple patterns used well.

Did anyone else notice that the end credits are in reverse as homage to the underlying theme of time’s nonlinear presentation.

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The Theory of Everything misses the visual marks that could make it extraordinary. Thankfully, the film is built on the wonderful chemistry of definitive stars Redmayne and Jones. It isn’t the best picture of 2014, but it is a remarkable character study of one of the most interesting characters in history.

 

4.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

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[#2015oscardeathrace] Gone Girl (2014)

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Director: David Fincher

Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon

Screenplay: Gillian Flynn

149 mins. Rated R for a scene of bloody violence, some strong sexual content/nudity, and language.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Rosamund Pike) [Awards Not Yet Announced]

 

David Fincher (Fight Club, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) can really do it all. I’ve seen footage of him on set directing, and he knows his stuff. He understands the complex process of lighting, cinematography, editing, music, everything. Perhaps that is why his films are so totally tonally jarring.

Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck, Argo, Runner Runner) is about to celebrate his fifth wedding anniversary with wife Amy (Rosamund Pike, Pride & Prejudice, Hector and the Search for Happiness). When he arrives home after checking in with sister Margo (Carrie Coon, TV’s The Leftovers), he discovers that Amy is gone. The living room shows signs of a struggle, and the door is wide open. Now, the police are investigating and Nick is dodging questions and lying. He can’t explain his whereabouts when Amy went missing, and the media firestorm is heating up. So the question is: Did Nick Dunne kill his wife?

The first thing I fell in love with in Gone Girl is the opening titles. I always look forward to a great opening from Fincher. The man knows how to set a scene, but in Gone Girl, we just got little flits of names, roughly half the time needed to read them. I missed a few even. They pop up and then boom!, they are gone, like the girl in question.

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Ben Affleck is absolutely perfect as suspected husband Nick. He plays the role so well, that it becomes entirely believable that he may have kidnapped and killed his wife. But did he? He plays both sides so well that it is impossible to know for certain until the answers come forth. When I saw Ben Affleck channeling the likes of Scott Peterson and playing to the faults and wins of Nick, I got chills.

Rosamund Pike isn’t so much a leading lady as she is a presence on the screen. Totally deserving of her Oscar win as the film presents Amy’s side of the story through journal entries chronicling the ups and downs of their love story. She commands her scenes.

Neil Patrick Harris (TV’s How I Met Your Mother, A Million Ways to Die in the West) is a creepy presence as Amy’s ex-love Desi, who has an alibi but to Nick seems to be hiding something nonetheless.

Then there is Tyler Perry (I Can Do Bad All By Myself, The Single Moms Club), who needs to do more acting in movies he isn’t directing. Seriously, I enjoyed the small screen-time he had in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, but he just nails it in the role of Tanner Bolt, a big-shot lawyer who takes on impossible cases like Nick’s.

I should also point out the great additions of relative newcomers Carrie Coon and Emily Ratajkowski. Coon is convincing as Nick’s sister Margo despite the age difference, and Ratajkowski plays to her strengths as the college girl who wants more from teacher Nick than just lessons.

The novel’s writer Gillian Flynn is responsible for adapting the screenplay, and she does well. Without losing the structure, she adapts the novel quite well, excelling at picking the right moments to adapt without just throwing the novel at the screen. The screenplay took some slashing before filming began, and perhaps it could have been tipped a few more times, but the pacing is still pretty solid.

The score, from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, their third collaboration with Fincher, works perfectly here. I enjoyed their work in The Social Network but felt that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo missed some cues that could’ve been more exemplified. It is equal parts tonally exhilarating and utterly unnerving.

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Gone Girl is a near-perfect adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel that stays true to it from every angle. Fincher is the perfect man to bring it, and Affleck’s manhood, to the screen. See this movie. You may love it, you may hate it, but one thing you can’t argue about, you can’t forget it.

 

4.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

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[Oscar Madness] [Happy 10th Birthday!] Transamerica (2005)

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Director: Duncan Tucker

Cast: Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers, Graham Greene, Fionnula Flanagan, Burt Young, Carrie Preston, Elizabeth Pena

Screenplay: Duncan Tucker

103 mins. Rated R for sexual content, nudity, language and drug use.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Felicity Huffman)
  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song (“Travelin’ Thru” by Dolly Parton)

It’s been ten years since Felicity Huffman’s career-making and Oscar-nominated performance in Transamerica. Today, we take a look back.

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Bree (Huffman, TV’s Desperate Housewives, Cake) is a transitioning woman who is about to go through a major life-altering surgery when she discovers that she fathered a son years previously. Her son Toby (Kevin Zegers, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, The Colony) has been making money prostituting himself to the masses or anyone with clean cash. Bree goes to bail out Toby and then takes him on a cross-country trip back home with her, stopping along the way to see her father (Burt Young, Rocky, Rob the Mob) and mother (Fionnula Flanagan, The Others, Song of the Sea).

Huffman’s performance is definitely note-worthy. There were many many times when I didn’t see Huffman performing in this movie. I saw Bree, a woman going through an awakening, albeit an emotionally painful one, and not wanting to reveal herself to her son while trying to keep a part of him in her life.

Zegers brings a strong piece of work here as well. Toby is going through his own awakening. He hasn’t had a father in his life and doesn’t know how a man is “supposed” to act.

I also enjoyed the supporting plays from Flanagan and Young as Bree’s parents. They are old-fashioned folk who just plain don’t understand Bree’s transition and, especially Flanagan, doesn’t want to.

First-time big-time director Duncan Tucker can handle a camera, but he doesn’t particularly know how to impress with it. This film belongs to the performers, most notably Huffman.

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Transamerica suffers from an uninspired style and too much meandering on the way to a plot, but aided by some terrific performances, it has the worth to be remembered, if only it were more so.

3.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

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