The Grouchy Editor

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These are a few things that Drive has going for it:  1) the hottest actor of the year, Ryan Gosling; 2) arguably the most promising actress of 2010, Carey Mulligan; 3) a director, Nicolas Winding Refn, who brings a distinctive European flavor to the project; 4) handsome production design and striking visuals.

None of that matters, because Drive goes nowhere thanks to a lackluster story and characters who are thinner than windshield-wiper fluid.  It’s all very frustrating, because the film would seem to have so much potential.  Yet once again, Hollywood puts polish and shine on a movie and neglects the most important element, good storytelling.

Gosling plays “the driver,” an enigmatic Steve McQueen type, a soft-spoken loner who is on the wrong side of the law but who harbors — you guessed it — a kinder, gentler side.  Just in case we overlook this aspect of his personality, we are treated to scenes of Gosling watching cartoons with a kid.  Somehow, I can’t picture McQueen taking time out in The Getaway to watch an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

The driver decides to bless a girl next door with his niceness, which leads to big problems.  Mulligan, so good in An Education and in Never Let Me Go, has the thankless role of “the girl” in another example of lousy parts for women in Hollywood “A” movies.  Mulligan plays a single mother (dad is in prison) whose main purpose in Drive is to cast sad looks at the men in her life:  expressions of longing for Gosling, and looks of despair for her no-good husband, an ex-con called “Standard.”  (I checked, but I could find no character in the film named “Automatic.”)

The supporting cast is also wasted.  Bryan Cranston is the foolish sidekick whom any graduate of Movies 101 will tell you is expendable in a movie like this.  Christina Hendricks looks fetching but comes and goes in no time at all.  Albert Brooks, as a foul-tempered money man, is one of the film’s few bright spots.  The undernourished plot is a heist-gone-wrong story that you’ve seen many times before.

Refn, who inexplicably took home a Best Director award from the Cannes Film Festival for this mediocrity, wants his film to be like Shane with car chases.  Shane was cool and had lots of soul.  Drive looks cool, but has no soul.      Grade:  C+

Director:  Nicolas Winding Refn  Cast:  Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Oscar Isaac, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, Kaden Leos, Jeff Wolfe, James Biberi, Russ Tamblyn  Release:  2011

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I wanted to like Julia’s Eyes, really I did.  It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good blind-damsel-in-distress movie, maybe since Audrey Hepburn turned off the lights in 1967’s Wait Until Dark.  Alas, despite a handsome production, nifty direction, and some good acting, Julia’s Eyes is … dumb.

The thriller begins promisingly with the death of Julia’s twin sister Sara (both played by Belen Rueda), apparently by suicide.  Both women suffer from a degenerative eye disease.  Sara had gone completely blind, and it’s just a matter of time before Julia does, as well.  But was Sara’s death really a suicide?  Julia doesn’t believe so, but can she convince anyone else?  Have we seen this plot before?

Director Guillem Morales’s film goes wrong where nearly all films of this type do:  far-fetched storytelling.  The first half of the movie is basically a whodunit, but Who Did It becomes obvious early on.  Once we have that information, the movie turns into a routine killer-chasing-heroine exercise, with stale elements borrowed from The Silence of the Lambs, Rear Window, and yes, Wait Until Dark.

Unlike its esteemed predecessors, Julia’s Eyes lacks originality.  Instead, it has an abundance of clichés:  When Julia has an opportunity to stab the killer with a knife, she jabs him in the leg — that way, he won’t die and can continue to chase her.  We are asked to believe that the bad guy, played by an actor blessed with movie-star looks, is angry at the world because he feels “invisible” in day-to-day life.  And then there are the scary scenes that turn out to be — you guessed it — nightmares.

Some people will be drawn to this movie because one of its producers is Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth).  But as we’ve learned from Steven Spielberg, attaching a big name to a film project is no guarantee of quality.  Julia’s Eyes is frustratingly stupid.      Grade:  C+

Director:  Guillem Morales  Cast:  Belen Rueda, Lluis Homar, Pablo Derqui, Francesc Orella, Joan Dalmau, Boris Ruiz, Daniel Grao, Clara Segura, Catalina Munar  Release:  2010

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Poor Kirk Anderson.  Pasty-faced, flabby, and bespectacled, all Kirk wanted from life was to be able to wear his Mormon underwear, please his mother, and be left in peace.  And what did he get?  An obsessed southern beauty, that’s what; a former nude model so convinced that she and Kirk were “soul mates” that she hired a pilot, flew to England, (allegedly) kidnapped Kirk, tied him to a bed, and made wild passionate love to him.

Somebody called that rape, and before you could say “Fleet Street,” Scotland Yard got involved, and then the British press, and the next thing poor Kirk knew, his bizarre relationship with this, um, unusual woman, Joyce McKinney, was front-page news.  Thirty-four years later, the strange, sordid saga of Joyce and Kirk is back in the news, courtesy of filmmaker Errol Morris’s new documentary, Tabloid.

Morris tracked down McKinney (not hard to do; the woman seems to love the spotlight), but not Anderson (he declined to be interviewed), placed his camera in front of her, and let her talk.  And boy, does she ever.

The problem with Tabloid is that we live in the age of Casey Anthony and O.J. Simpson.  Inevitably, a 1977 sex scandal that rocked England pales in comparison to the more lurid, sensational cases of recent years.  Morris’s interviews with McKinney and members of the British press seem quaint and insignificant, more like an episode of 20/20 than a feature-length film.

McKinney herself seems garden-variety eccentric, and not all that intriguing.  We all know people like her, even if they don’t share her colorful past.     Grade:  B-

Director:  Errol Morris   Featuring:  Joyce McKinney, Peter Tory, Kent Gavin, Mark Lipson, Jackson Shaw, Troy Williams, Jin Han Hong, Julie Bilson Ahlberg   Release: 2011

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Glancing around the sparsely attended theater where I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love, this is what I observed:  several white-haired couples, aging Baby Boomers killing time on a weekday afternoon; a few young couples, possibly Obama Democrats, probably drawn by the movie’s youthful stars; and one fat guy in his twenties, seated alone and with a gigantic box of popcorn in hand.  This mixed bag of the American populace made me think of the outside world, and of all the unhappy clashes of Tea Parties and gay-rights advocates and Fox News and … never mind, we were there to watch a movie. 

But as the film progressed, telling its story of sad-sack Steve Carell’s divorce from high-school sweetheart Julianne Moore and Carell’s conversion to swinging singlehood by playboy Ryan Gosling, I couldn’t help wondering what my fellow audience members might be thinking.  What did the white-haired couples think of 17-year-old Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who delights a 13-year-old boy by giving him a racy memento – naked pictures of herself?  What did the fat guy with the popcorn think of Gosling’s character, who is presented as one cool lady killer, but whom the script insists must be transformed into a “nice guy” by the time the end credits roll?

It had to be a lot easier to write romantic comedies in the past.  Think what you will about Hollywood sexism and racism in the old days, at least the rules were easy to follow.  Not anymore.  What are we supposed to make of Emma Stone’s character, a “good girl” who decides to have a one-night-stand with Gosling – is she a slut or a liberated woman?  Is Carell a sensitive male, or a lily-livered pansy?  Is Gosling an admirable hunk – or a chauvinist pig in Yves Saint Laurent?  And are drunk scenes still funny?

This movie is a mess, because like me, it can’t seem to decide what to make of its characters.  I don’t like to jump on other critics, but when Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman says that Crazy, Stupid, Love is “the perfect combination of sexy, cute, wise, hilarious, and true,” I have to wonder what he’s been smoking.

By “true,” is Gleiberman referring to the contrived coincidences, such as when Carell’s horny date turns out to be his son’s teacher?  Or when Gosling’s latest conquest turns out to be Carell’s daughter?  Did Carell’s cliched Big Speech at the end of the movie strike Gleiberman as authentic?

Maybe he was referring to the simple truth that none of us can agree on what is wise, hilarious, and true anymore.  I guess I should have asked the fat guy with the popcorn what he thought.        Grade:  C

Directors:  Glenn Ficarra, John Requa   Cast:  Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Analeigh Tipton, Jonah Bobo, Marisa Tomei, John Carroll Lynch, Kevin Bacon   Release:  2011

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