Review: "Dirty Pretty Things" is a Pretty Movie Thing (Happy B'day, Chiwetel Ejiofor)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 140 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux


Dirty Pretty Things (2002)
- U.S. release in 2003
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: United Kingdom
Running time: 97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)
MPAA – R for sexual content, disturbing images and language
DIRECTOR: Stephen Frears
WRITER: Steven Knight
PRODUCERS: Robert Jones and Tracey Seaward
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Chris Menges
EDITOR: Mick Audsley
COMPOSER: Nathan Larson
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/MYSTERY/THRILLER with elements of romance

Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Audrey Tautou, Sergo López, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Wong, and Zlatko Buric

The subject of this movie review is Dirty Pretty Things, a 2002 British thriller from director Stephen Frears. This drama about two illegal immigrants in London was released in the United States in 2003 and went on to earn an Oscar nomination.

In Stephen Frears’ wonderful Dirty Pretty Things, Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an illegal Nigerian immigrant, discovers the unsavory side of London life. He works at a posh London hotel that is especially popular with men who frequent prostitutes. Okwe stumbles across evidence of a bizarre murder committed in one of the hotel rooms – a human heart clogging up the commode. Okwe is also involved in an awkward relationship with his roommate, Senay (Audrey Tautou), a Turkish chambermaid who is also on shaky footing with immigration. Okwe’s discovery in the hotel room and his connection with Senay eventually collide, and the manner in which he resolves both problems is this film’s centerpiece.

Stephen Frears’ filmography is a wonderful collection of eccentric and quirky films that are more than surface peculiarity. Most are very good films, and a few a truly great, including this one. Frears’ weaves a picture show of palatable drama that is also a convincing romance (although a sad one), a riveting, gritty, urban drama and a mesmerizing tale of mystery and intrigue. He is however blessed with Steven Knight’s Academy Award-nominated script (“Best Original Screenplay”). Knight gives the film a solid plot that, instead of overwhelming the film, allows the story to expand beyond genre intrigue. His writing also gives the characters (another element that is strong in his script) the chance to play at being more just chess pieces in a thriller.

The cast gives outstanding performances, especially Chiwetel Ejiofor. Although Miramax’s marketing for the film’s U.S. release emphasized the ethereal, haunting beauty of Audrey Tautou and her melancholy character, Senay, this is Okwe’s story. Chiwetel is the foundation of this movie’s success, guiding and holding the film with his hypnotic and penetrating gaze and steady strength. He strides this production like a cowboy in a western epic, holding the dark forces at bay and saving the damsel in distress. All in all, Ejiofor highlights a fine film presentation in which all hands did top notch work. I heartily recommend Dirty Pretty Things.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2004 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Writing, Original Screenplay” (Steven Knight)

2003 BAFTA Awards: 2 nominations: “Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film” (Tracey Seaward, Robert Jones, and Stephen Frears) and “Best Screenplay – Original” (Steven Knight)

2004 Black Reel Awards: 1 win: “Film: Best Actor” (Chiwetel Ejiofor)

Review: "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" is a Good Neo-Western (Happy B'day, Tommy Lee Jones)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 162 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)
Running time: 121 minutes (2 hours, 1 minute)
MPAA – R for language, violence, and sexuality
DIRECTOR: Tommy Lee Jones
WRITER: Guillermo Arriaga
PRODUCERS: Luc Besson, Michael Fitzgerald, Tommy Lee Jones, and Pierre-Ange Le Pogam
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Chris Menges
EDITOR: Roberto Silvi

DRAMA with elements of comedy and western

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cesar Cedillo, January Jones, Dwight Yoakum, Melissa Leo, and Levon Helm

Ranch hand Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) found a treasured friend in an illegal (undocumented) Mexican worker, Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo), who becomes a cowboy at the ranch Peter manages. However, a hot headed and ruthless border patrol officer, Mike Norton (Barry Pepper, who exquisitely channels bad vibes to play Norton), kills Melquiades and buries him in an unmarked grave to hide his crime or error (depends on how you look at it). When Pete learns of Melquiades’ death, he kidnaps Mike and has him dig the body out of the pauper’s grave in which it was buried. Then, Pete drags Mike and Melquiades’ corpse on a harrowing journey by horseback across the border to Mexico in order to bury Melquiades in his hometown.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada has all the trappings of a western and the narrative is ripe with scenes of black humor. Like a western, it deals with revenge and justice, and the black comedy comes through the macabre situations involving Estrada’s increasingly gruesome corpse (not to mention a drolly humorous love/sex triangle). Still, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a story of friendship and obligation. As a famous talk show host recently said of her close relationship with a female friend, perhaps, we don’t have a term to describe the familiarity and understanding that defines the bond between Pete Perkins and Melquiades Estrada. Tommy Lee Jones unadorned and simple, yet masterful direction helps us to understand that a friendship means so much that a man would risk his standing and his professional life to do right by what’s left of his friend on this earth.

Jones, who seems to wear the western well – even quasi ones such as this, also deals with the themes of alienation and the search for meaning in life and love, and in this case the love between two men, as well as between women and men. In his film, souls seem as sparse as much of the landscape that surrounds them. Jones’ characters grasp at connectivity, and Jones uses the subtleties to enrich the film. He shows that even the most lonesome souls find partnerships – even for a little while. It makes The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada a work that eagerly reflects humanity in all its unattractiveness and its most desperately hopeful light.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2005 Cannes Film Festival: 2 wins: “Best Actor” (Tommy Lee Jones) and “Best Screenplay” (Guillermo Arriaga); 1 nominations for the Palme d'Or (Tommy Lee Jones)

Saturday, July 29, 2006

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Review: "Notes on a Scandal" is Delightfully Scandalous (Happy B'day, Cate Blanchett)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 70 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux


Notes on a Scandal (2006)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK
Running time: 92 minutes (1 hour, 32 minutes)
MPAA – R for language and some aberrant sexual content
DIRECTOR: Richard Eyre
WRITER: Patrick Marber (based upon the book What was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller)
PRODUCERS: Scott Rudin and Robert Fox
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Chris Menges
EDITORS: John Bloom and Antonia Van Drimmelen
2007 Academy Award nominee

DRAMA with elements of a thriller

Starring: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy, Andrew Simpson, Juno Temple, Max Lewis, and Stephen Kennedy

Notes on a Scandal is a chance to see two of the world’s best actresses delivering tour de force performances. For people who love great acting and great actresses, this film is a treasure trove. It’s rare when two actors are this good in the same movie where the script requires them to perform together during most of the film. Together, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett are enough to burn out your eyes.

Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) is a senior faculty member at St. George’s, a decaying, state-run secondary school. Lonely and bitter, she hasn’t connected with the rest of the faculty, but she rules over her class with an iron fist. Barbara does take an interest in the school’s newest faculty member, a pretty art teacher named Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). Sheba ends up in an illicit affair with, Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson), a 15-year old male student.

After Barbara accidentally discovers this, she confronts Sheba, but promises not to tell if Sheba ends the affair. Barbara also plots to use this intimate secret as a way to coerce Sheba into having an affair with her, but when Sheba continues the relationship with Steven, things turn ugly. In a moment of blind jealousy, Barbara does something that will hurt all involved, including Sheba’s husband, Richard (Bill Nighy), and will also bring the secret deceptions and dark obsessions to the surface.

The sign of a quality movie director is his ability to recognize a significant movie script and then, be able to turn it over to great actors and help them bring forth great performances. Richard Eyre (who previously directed Judi Dench to an Oscar nomination in 2001’s Iris) is such a quality film director. Patrick Marber’s script encapsulates what it feels like to be alone even in a crowd of familiar people, including one’s on family, and that’s to say nothing of Marber’s treatise on people so lonely they victimize other people to satisfy their need for connection and companionship. (Sheba calls Barbara a vampire, late in the film) Eyre doesn’t lose the richness of either Marber’s rich narrative or his complex look at the potential selfishness of neediness.

In spite of the good directing and writing, many will remember Notes on a Scandal for the two tremendous performances that literally make and define this film. Indeed, over the years, other movie lovers will seek out Notes precisely to see why so many other fans will still be raving about Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. Dench defines Barbara with a domineering presence, a powerful and direct voice, a demeanor that might give a mugger pause, and the haughty attitude to end haughty attitudes. She makes Barbara so dishonest in her dealings with people that she could give the Prince of Lies a run for his money. Dench intensely uses her skills and still manages to make Barbara feel genuine and authentic as a person.

Meanwhile, Blanchett builds her character physically. The secret life of Sheba and her general unhappiness and malaise are evident in the way Blanchett moves. It is in a gaze or a wave of the arms – in the way she dances, the way she cries, or even how she sits in a chair. Blanchett opens the audience to what is real about Sheba, and what she’s hiding and the lies she’s telling. Movies like Notes on a Scandal that make you appreciate genuine acting and filmmaking talent and the skill to put that talent to practical use.

A horror movie in all but genre, Notes on a Scandal is as scandalous as its subject matter, but this highbrow freak show is a feast of film acting

8 of 10
A
NOTES:
2007 Academy Awards: 4 nominations: “Best performance by an actress in a leading role” (Judi Dench), “Best performance by an actress in a supporting role” (Cate Blanchett), “Best writing, adapted screenplay” (Patrick Marber), and “Best achievement in music written for motion pictures, original score” (Philip Glass)

2007 BAFTA Awards: 3 nominations: “Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film” (Scott Rudin, Robert Fox, Richard Eyre, and Patrick Marber), “Best Actress in a Leading Role” (Judi Dench), and “Best Screenplay – Adapted” (Patrick Marber)

2007 Golden Globes: 3 nominations: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Judi Dench), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Cate Blanchett), and “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Patrick Marber)

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Review: North Country is the Legal Thriller as a Gritty Drama

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 44 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

North Country (2005)
Running time: 126 minutes (2 hours, 6 minutes)
MPAA – R for sequences involving sexual harassment including violence and dialogue, and for language)
DIRECTOR: Nick Caro
WRITER: Michael Seitzman (from the book Class Action: The Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler)
PRODUCER: Nick Wechsler
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Chris Menges
EDITOR: David Coulson
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA

Starring: Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Sean Bean, Richard Jenkins, Jeremy Renner, Michelle Monaghan, Woody Harrelson, Sissy Spacek, Thomas Curtis, and Elle Peterson

Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) was stuck in a failed marriage, but this last time her husband beat her is the last time, she tells herself. Josey takes her two children, Karen (Elle Peterson) and Sammy (Thomas Curtis), and returns to her Northern Minnesota home, where she moves in with her parents, Hank (Richard Jenkins) and Alice Aimes (Sissy Spacek). Hank still carries an old grudge with his daughter Josey because Sammy was born out of wedlock when Josey was a teenager.

Encouraged by Glory (Frances McDormand), an old friend, Josey takes a job in the area’s predominant source of employment, the iron mines, where her father also works. However, times are tough, and jobs are scarce. The iron mines are traditionally a man’s job, and the men don’t want women there taking jobs from other men. Hank considers his daughter’s presence a threat to him and one more embarrassment on his family. The male workers let their feelings be known by making the mines an exceedingly tough place to work, and they do that through various forms of harassment – in particular sexual harassment.

Josey speaks out against the hideous treatment she and the other women face, but the mine’s owners, management, and fellow workers, including the other women, meet her with resistance. Her difficulties and the scorn she faces affects her relationship with her children, especially her sensitive teenage son, Sammy, who must not only deal with his mother’s sudden infamy, but also with embarrassing details of Josey’s past that she hoped he’d never have to know. When Bill White (Woody Harrelson) a local lawyer and former hometown hero takes Josey’s case on as a potential class action lawsuit, they’re forced to go it alone until dark secrets from the past come forward and open the eyes of those who should have supported Josey all along.

North Country is based upon and is a fictional account of the first successful sexual harassment lawsuit, Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, which began in the 80’s and was settled in 1998. The courtroom scenes are TV movie quality (complete with the 11th hour miracle), but resonate when Charlize Theron is on the stand. While North Country certainly has compelling subject matter, the script seems to cherry pick scenes that go for maximum emotional impact or shock value. There is nothing subtle here, or new for that matter: men angry that there space and manhood have been challenged; assorted rednecks, cowardly women who won’t stand up for themselves, the pissed-off teenage son, the evil mine owner, the self-righteous and judgmental townsfolk, etc.

However, North Country takes a hard look at how honorable people keep quiet and let wrong go unchallenged for fear of drawing unpleasant attention to themselves. That’s why it would have been nice if the film focused less on giving the lead actress scenes she can chew up to get the attention of award voters and more on developing the other characters. Even the worst characters in this movie come across as interesting with something to say – their side of the story. Sometimes the villainy in North Country is just too thick, even if the villainous actions are not only in the realm of possibility, but actually happen in the real world. Fleshing out the “bad guys” would have so enriched the narrative, giving its central message and ideas some real, forceful impact.

Charlize Theron is so beautiful that a movie’s makeup department has to pile on the ugly to make her look plain. That worked in Monster, the 2003 film that earned her an Oscar, but here, her beauty shows through. She’s the working class babe – a diamond in coal dust. Sometimes, those good looks seem out of place, but when Theron takes an average script and believes in it, she can improve a movie. It’s OK that sometimes what the audience is supposed to think about Josey’s trials and tribulations seem plastered on a big signpost for the audience to see because Charlize looks good even when she’s hamming. Here, she’s mixes drama with a flair for the melodramatic.

North Country viscerally the film plays its subject matter. Director Nick Caro (Whale Rider) might be dealing in stereotypes, but she’s also dealing in truth. The way Caro portrays small town ignorance and bigotry gives her film sharp teeth and a razor-sharp edge. The meanness of a small town populace that capriciously picks its outcasts; the meanness of women who should be sympathetic to other women; and the meanness of co-workers who go overboard in their harassment of fellow workers take a limp courtroom drama with shoddy supporting character development and propel it to truth. Caro and screenwriter Michael Seitzman may often rely on old dramatic relationship formulas – the kind of relationship dynamics that sell soap operas. Still, North Country is an honest drama that takes no prisoners in depicting cowardice and evil. That is enough to take the edge off its faults.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2006 Academy Awards: 2 nominations: best actress (Charlize Theron) and best supporting actress (Frances McDormand)


2006 BAFTA Awards: 2 nominations: best actress (Charlize Theron) and best supporting actress (McDormand)


2006 Golden Globes: 2 nominations: motion picture actor-drama (Charlize Theron) and supporting actress in a motion picture (Frances McDormand)

Saturday, February 25, 2006