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Demolition: Mini-review

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Jake Gyllenhaal

Jake Gyllenhaal plays another quirky character in Demolition

CTearing one’s clothes is a sign of mourning in some cultures. However, Davis Mitchell, Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in the new movie Demolition, goes well beyond this as he systematically dismantles his entire house after his wife dies in an auto accident. Eventually, the house falls apart, and so too does the movie.

Davis at first feels nothing after his wife’s death, but after his father-in-law Phil (Chris Cooper) makes a comment about taking things apart before putting them together again, Davis quits going to work and compulsively disassembles or destroys everything he can. Soon, his only human contact is Karen (Naomi Watts), an equally troubled woman who takes Davis in.

Demolition was directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, whose two previous films, Wild and Dallas Buyers Club also featured people who deal with tragedy in their lives in bizarre ways. The difference is that the other two films were based on real people, while Davis Mitchell is merely a symbol. As played by Gyllenhaal, Davis is relatable, a man who eventually realizes he never really felt much about anything before. But instead of giving Davis’ actions some degree of credibility in Demolition, the script by Bryan Sipe merely comes up with increasingly outlandish acts of destruction, culminating in a scene in which Davis persuades Karen’s teenage son (an excellent Judah Lewis) to shoot him while Davis wears a bulletproof vest. Since, in real life, Davis would have been institutionalized halfway through the film, Vallée and Sipe clearly intend Demolition as a metaphorical film. But it’s not funny enough to succeed as dark comedy and not uplifting enough to succeed as magical whimsy, despite a final feel-good scene. The best scenes in Demolition are those between Gyllenhaal and Lewis, which suggest that a more realistic film about Davis’ new “family” might have succeeded. However, that storyline ends abruptly and rather arbitrarily, as if Vallée had decided that the movie had gone on long enough. Gyllenhaal’s performance and chemistry with Lewis make Demolition watchable, but the audience will wish that someone had repaired the damage to the script before filming.
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The Divergent Series: Allegiant: Mini-review

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Shailene Woodley

Shailene Woodley is back for a third go-around in Allegiant

D+ Watching The Divergent Series: Allegiant brings to mind George Santayana’s endlessly paraphrased epigram, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That advice applies perfectly to both the characters in Allegiant, who have not learned any lessons from the first two movies in the series, and the filmmakers, who seemingly haven’t learned any lessons from similar YA series such as The Hunger Games. 

As Allegiant begins, rebels have overthrown the old order in what used to be Chicago and installed a new ruler, Evelyn (Naomi Watts), who’s pretty much as ruthless as her predecessors and prohibits people from leaving the city. Tris (Shailene Woodley), who led the insurgency, Evelyn’s son Four (Theo James), and a few friends scale the giant wall surrounding Chicago and escape into a desolate wasteland. They eventually find their way to the headquarters of the Bureau of Genetic Research, an agency that’s been monitoring events in Chicago. The Bureau’s leader David (Jeff Daniels) tells Tris that the problems in Chicago were caused by damaged genes, and that Tris, the only person in the world with perfect genes, is the key to rebuilding society.

The first two movies in this series, Divergent and Insurgent, weren’t great but at least had some decent action scenes and a somewhat intriguing vision of a particular dystopian future resulting from a master plan gone wrong. Allegiant, on the other hand, seems to have crafted its vision of the future straight from Josef Mengele’s lab notes, complete with blather about pure and damaged genes. Yes, the outside world blundered in setting up the faction system that ruled Chicago, but now they do it all over again. At least, Shailene Woodley gets to display some genuine emotion occasionally, and Miles Teller has fun as the duplicitous Peter, whose loyalties change from scene to scene. Otherwise, a talented cast is pretty much given little to do other than wait for things to come. And things definitely will come, since Allegiant covers merely the first half of the concluding novel in author Veronica Roth’s original YA trilogy. Once again, filmmakers try to milk a franchise by dividing one book into two movies with predictably bad results: a boring, talky, padded, unoriginal film. The Divergent series ran out of ideas in the last movie and is reduced to recycling them in Allegiant, and, except for one exciting sequence in which Tris and her group scale the wall to escape her former home, there’s very little action either. The series might redeem itself in the upcoming final movie, but Allegiant was doomed from the start.
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While We’re Young: Mini-Review

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Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller taps into middle age angst in While We’re Young

BSatchel Paige, who played major league baseball well into his 40’s, once famously said, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” At the start of Noah Baumbach‘s insightful new comedy, While We’re Young, Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) Srebnick do look back and find that middle age is gaining on them faster than they’d care to admit. The only question is what they’re going to do about it.

The problem is a bit more telling for Josh, since he’s a documentary producer with one critical success quite a few years back and a current project that’s not finished despite his continuing to work on it for ten years. However, they both feel something is missing in their lives but find what they think is the answer in a friendship with Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried) a mid-20’s couple who enjoy spending time with them despite the age and culture difference. However, this Fountain of Youth is fleeting, as Josh eventually realizes that Jamie is using the older couple as a stepping stone in his own filmmaking career.

While We’re Young marks a welcome return to form for both Stiller and Baumbach, both of whose careers bear certain resemblances to that of the fictional Josh. Stiller is vulnerable, not annoying here, and Baumbach has filled the movie with clever cultural and generational observations. A sequence in which Josh and Cornelia attend a New Age session that involves throwing up in a communal bucket is the funniest in the film. While We’re Young is also, almost by default, a welcome return for Charles Grodin, too seldom seen in recent years, who steals the film as Josh’s disapproving father-in-law who finds Jamie much more of a kindred spirit. The movie rambles on somewhat in its last 20 minutes, as if Baumbach couldn’t figure out just what points he wanted to make, but it closes on an appropriately sweet note. While We’re Young is an entertaining, insightful film to see for both the young and not-so-young.  
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Insurgent: Mini-Review

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Shailene Woodley

Shailene Woodley channels her inner Jennifer Lawrence

C-The best praise I can give  Insurgent, the sequel to last year’s modest YA science fiction success, Divergent, is to note that it doesn’t merely recycle the same plot points as its predecessor. Unfortunately, the producers seem to have exhausted their store of fresh ideas in the first movie and are reduced to ripping off other movies like The Matrix, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Hellraiser instead. 

The storyline of Insurgent picks up a few months after Divergent ended. In a dystopian future, residents of what’s left of Chicago live behind massive walls and are divided into five factions based on their predispositions. However, a few, like Tris (Shailene Woodley), are “divergents,” possessing aptitudes for multiple factions. The de facto ruler of the society, Jeanine (Kate Winslet), is trying to hunt down Tris and the other divergents. In the meantime, Tris and her boyfriend Four (Theo James) form an uneasy alliance with Four’s mother Evelyn (Naomi Watts), leader of the homeless Factionless, who wants to bring down Jeanine.

YA science fiction concepts generally aren’t all that complex to begin with, and Insurgent abandons most of the intricacies found in Divergent. Instead, what emerges is yet another story of a fascistic ruling élite and their storm trooper lackies putting their ideas of racial superiority and purification in place. And, for all of Kate Winslet’s acting skills, she’s not nearly as good at playing the big bad as Donald Sutherland is in the similar role in the Hunger Games movies. The first half hour of Insurgent contains plenty of action, much of it well staged, but, after that, the movie goes downhill quickly. Woodley does her best, but she struggles in a role that requires her to spend most of the movie blaming herself for everything that’s gone wrong in her world. The only character who seems to be having fun is the duplicitous Peter (Miles Teller), whose loyalties go back and forth as the plot demands. The movie culminates in the last of many dream sequences Tris endures, all of which seem like outtakes from The Matrix. However, it’s the audience that really has to endure these sequences to get through Insurgent.
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