TAKE THIS, SHE SAYS; I REFUSE

DIRECTED BY SARAH POLLEY 

STARRING: MICHELLE WILLIAMS, SETH ROGEN, LUKE KIRBY and SARAH SILVERMAN 

‘Take this Waltz’ is a film that promises but one character of remarkable authenticity only to cheat us in the end by reducing that person, that character, to a cameo. In its defence, there have been films that have been more hostile towards their audiences. ‘Addicted to Love’, for instance – that piece of sadism which beat one of its characters to pulp simply for being more mature than the rest. The French might have had to think a million times for a while before they headed out west after that film, post the rush that ‘Green Card’ might have generated, what with an Andie MacDowell waiting for every Depardieu in line. Of course, I mean that figuratively. 

Geraldine (Sarah Silverman) is that woman. Margot (Michelle Williams) is who she isn’t. One talks about dealing with dissatisfaction in a relationship, the other goes through the same. Geraldine is married to Aaron Rubin (Aaron Abrams) while Margot is married to his younger brother Lou (Seth Rogen, deflated). Geraldine has been married for about a year, Margot’s been married for two. From what we see, they have come a long way since. 

Well, Geraldine not much, actually. Her case might be jitters – what she thinks is concern could be called ‘paranoia.’ Margot, in fact, labels it so and it’s perhaps in the fact that she thinks her situation trumps Geraldine’s little problem. Geraldine calls for attention, Margot worries about the fact that she’s running out of love to give. By that, I mean she has lost the spark in the relationship that I find I can argue into being. Margot looks to be the kind of woman who would role-play in reciprocation to the attention she gets. She’s a perpetual Maggie Carpenter without a Gere-shift in place. Lou treats her to a splash of cold water every day as she showers with her eyes closed. She tells him they’ve got to call a plumber. It’s a Rickshaw-puller who, however, comes to fix the situation. 

The whole film revolves around Margot and her trials and tribulations, so let me take time off to talk about Lou for a while. First and foremost – and this is crucial – he is played by Seth Rogen. The humblest I’ve seen of him was as Ira Wright the struggling comic in ‘Funny People,’ where he rejects a girl for having broken rule number one. There’s perhaps a strand that separates Rogen from Ira Wright; Judd Apatow would know. Explosive or not, Rogen is confrontational. You throw a punch at him, he’d throw the F-word in return as he asks you why. Lou, in that way, is a plain-clothed version of Rogenality, and yet has the honesty the actor has always armed his characters with. 

So there’s humility on the one hand, there’s meekness on the other. And I don’t think it’s right to let a coin decide, let alone an antithetical script. 

If anything, it is the template performance of Williams’ that has me bring both films up in the same context. ‘Blue Valentine’ came to mind too often. Both films, of course, have her in the middle, in a similar (if not the same) kind of mess. In both Dean Pereira (Ryan Gosling) and Lou Rubin, we have men who have but a very slight hunch on what could have gone wrong. And there’s only so much that we know they can do about it. Like Daniel (Luke Kirby), the Rickshaw-puller-artist-sexy-beast, points out, all he (Lou) does is cook Chicken. (I haven’t mentioned it already, but Lou is an author of a popular line of Chicken recipes) And then he asks her if she likes Chicken. The answer is obvious.

‘Take this Waltz’, thus, is overstatement of a point that has been made so often it’s a smudge on a wall with dozens of prints on it. The characters are stereotypes who explain themselves as well – I sadly thought of talking Teletubbies. The film not only borrows its title from the Cohen/Lorca song, but also plays it on top of a montage that shows Daniel giving Margot what he so blatantly promises her in the beginning, a time when Lou didn’t want to gouge her eyeballs out. We have about a hundred minutes of runtime on a twenty-minute script – with the star value and the effort that appears to have gone into each performance, we could have had a half-decent short film that promoted tourism in Canada, given how passionate as romantics their Rickshaw-pullers are. 

I haven’t watched ‘Away from Her’ yet, so where Sarah Polley is concerned, I cannot judge. But I’d still like her to know that in a “Grass is Greener on the other side” concept as this, she can’t cast Seth Rogen as a house-cat husband, how much ever of a fabulous job he might do. Unless the grass in question, of course, has certain narcotic properties, in which case he’d be the perfect fit. 

MY OSCAR PREDICTIONS - 2011

Let’s keep it honest. I’ve watched about three-quarters of the nominees, I’ve soaked in the buzz, I suppose. About a day to go and this is when I thought I’d get word out on my own. An urge, the thought of having had a say, of having said something before it doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone wants to talk about the Oscars, good or bad. I’ve had my opinions, and I took the month to validate them. Some changed, some diversified. Some things just got unclear, too personal to have a say.

I’m only going to be discussing those sections where I have enough to corroborate. As for the rest, I shall humbly recline from saying anything. In all, the nominations, in my opinion, have been fair enough. I mean, they could’ve been worse, so it’s typical Oscars. Could’ve been worse, but just about managed to keep its dignity intact. Still, no ‘Shame’, no ‘Drive’, no ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene.’ No ‘Melancholia’, for the depression buffs, even though for me it’s a good thing.

Without ado, let me get on with my opinions on the nominees as well as predictions on who I think would win, and who I want/wanted to. The pattern would be self-explanatory, I guess I wouldn’t have to walk you through it. Let me let you enjoy your walk by yourself.

Best Picture

I know ‘the Artist’ won everything else, but all roads point to ‘Hugo,’ I think. The sad part is I haven’t watched it to have a clear opinion. ‘the Help’ had won Screen Actors’ Guild, ‘the Descendants’ had a Golden Globe win too. ‘A Separation’ would have been a major threat and has conveniently been excluded. I really don’t have a preference for Best Film, but I hope they don’t go ahead and honour Artists for the Filmmaker category, that sounds strangely sacrilegious.

Best Direction

Alexander Payne. ‘the Descendants’ is not going to win anything else, it’s not half as loaded as his brilliantly-written ‘Sideways’ to win the Screenwriters’ prize. Besides, face it – this is the single most impressive film that’s almost entirely a director’s credit as the Actor supports. Payne is one of America’s finest filmmakers of this generation; he deserves it more than anyone else. It would have been a different story had Nicolas Winding Refn (of ‘Drive’) been nominated. I’d still vouch for Payne. For ‘the Descendants,’ to me, has been the single most delightful movie event of the year.

Best Actor

One of the most substantial set of nominees in any award category this year. Michael Fassbender (for ‘Shame’) replaces Brad Pitt’s formality, and I think it’d be THE perfect set. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (in ‘50/50’) played an important role as well. Anyway, I think it’s between Gary Oldman (for ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’) and George Clooney (for ‘the Descendants’). Clooney carried an entire film on his shoulders and well while Oldman played it simple and played it smart at that. Demian Bichir (for ‘A Better Life’) could be the buffer – the Surprise package. I vouch for Clooney but something tells me Oldman would bag it. He’s the virgin. Please no Dujardin. I need a break.

Best Actress

The Weinsteins make reservations – one for the money and one for the time – displacing two of the defining performances of the year. Elizabeth Olsen for ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’, who gets my personal Oscar, and Kirsten Dunst for ‘Melancholia’, which, easily, was a career-best. Rooney Mara is the wrong young girl and it doesn’t make sense to nominate Meryl Streep anymore. Glenn Close was refreshingly subtle in ‘Albert Nobbs,’ although I think it’s a toss-in between Viola Davis (for ‘the Help’) and Michelle Williams for nailing her version of Marilyn Monroe in ‘my Week with Marilyn.’ Intuition points at Ms. Davis while my heart goes out for Michelle. She should have won it last time. She should win it this time too. Or so I think.

Best Supporting Actor

I haven’t watched enough movies to take a stand.

Best Supporting Actress

Hailee Steinfeld (for ‘True Grit’) was shifted from ‘Best Actress’ to ‘Best Supporting Actress’ last time so that she’d stand a chance – something she didn’t have against Ms. Portman sweeping the floors everywhere. Berenice Bejo (for ‘the Artist’) looks like this year’s version. It's a Weinstein move. Anyway, Octavia Spencer (for ‘the Help’) seems a universal favourite in a Dreamworks sweep. No Carey Mulligan (for ‘Shame’ and ‘Drive’). No Charlotte Gainsbourg (for ‘Melancholia’). Jessica Chastain for the wrong movie. I was impressed with Janet McTeer’s performance in the offbeat ‘Albert Nobbs.’ She gets my personal vote. Chastain gets my heart. And I go with Ms. Spencer as most probable, safely said.

Best Original Screenplay

‘A Separation’ in its only big nomination (aside from ‘Foreign Language Feature’) in a bunch of the inconsequential and the lacklustre. ‘Midnight in Paris’ is second best. This ought to be the most unoriginal year in the history of the Oscars; the year of adaptations and second-takes. ‘Win Win,' the American feel-good film of the year, hasn't been counted in. Or ‘50/50,’ the autobiography of a cancer-survivor who still hasn’t lost it in life. Disappointing. I’m glad the Iranian sneaked in. Otherwise, we’d have nothing to show.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Why do I think ‘Moneyball’ doesn’t deserve a single place in the Oscars this time? Because I haven’t watched it, perhaps. Nevertheless, Aaron Sorkin, who wasn’t rewarded last time when he stretched a one-liner story to film’s length with ‘the Social Network’ needed mention, I suppose. ‘the Help,’ I thought, was tidy. Like ‘the Ides of March’ or ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ – Tidy. That’s about it. Both my ignorance and precedence points at John Logan and his ‘Hugo.’ Alexander Payne needs the bigger prize. Pals Nat Faxon and Jim Rash better excuse him for that.

Best Animated Feature

A complete DreamWorks sweep, and I wonder why ‘the Adventures of Tintin’ hasn’t been counted in. Maybe a clause violation, I wouldn’t know. ‘Cars 2’ is the best. Any list without it doesn’t get my attention in any denomination. I think that’s enough said.

As for the rest, I think ‘A Separation’ deserves both the awards it has been nominated for, but that’s only because I think it deserves more. Ludovico Bource for ‘the Artist’ was succinct with his music score, but then Alexandre Desplat (for ‘A Better Life’, ‘my Week with Marilyn’ and on a darker note, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II’) has not been nominated. Or Michael Giacchino for ‘Cars 2’, two of the most important musicians of the decade. Too bad ‘Midnight in Paris’ can’t fall under Original Score. Or ‘the Descendants’, for that matter. There’s too little to decide between for ‘Best Original Song,’ there hasn’t been a worthy musical this year. I’d pick ‘Rio’ over ‘the Muppets,’ even though I love Jason Segel. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.

‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ gets multiple nominations for mixing and editing machine noises in a ‘Linkin Park’ soundtrack? Ridiculous. ‘Drive’ needs its consolation prize. So does the unnecessary effort behind ‘the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, I think. For the first time, we saw Hogwarts broken with so much fire, so convincing it touches your heart. The ‘Harry Potter’ franchise needs its recognition from the Muggle world. Nominations just don’t work anymore. ‘the Tree of Life’ can get the Photography prize, although I thought ‘A Better Life’ needed nomination. As well as Darius Khondji for ‘Midnight in Paris.’

Every critic has his Oscar dream – pre-nomination, post-nomination. Dreams, grievances; the little elation at seeing your horse win. I’ve taken my time to voice mine. Now I feel relieved. Relieved that I’ve shared, that I’ve spoken before it’s too late. And I hope you don’t sit with a clipboard and grade me on how much I’ve got it right. After all, I’m just another who waits for Wikipedia to tell me who has won.

ON HOW I LOST MY HEART (AND YOU WILL TOO)

DIRECTED BY SIMON CURTIS

STARRING: MICHELLE WILLIAMS, EDDIE REDMAYNE, KENNETH BRANAGH, DOMINIC COOPER, JULIA ORMOND, DOUGRAY SCOTT, ZOE WANAMAKER, TOBY JONES, PHILIP JACKSON with EMMA WATSON and JUDI DENCH

You remember ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ with Abigail Breslin and her infamous stripper routine at the end? The child is incredible; flawless with what she had been taught to do, what she thinks the crowd wants and absolutely loves her for – a crowd consisting of none but her granddad, of course. But she believes in her performance, she drowns in the illusion of it that when it’s broken, she finds herself startled. Think of the moment the song is turned off. Little Olive claps her hand to her mouth. She is thunderstruck. So many people hate her, so many people want her off the stage. Her dance is profane or so they think. She doesn’t. She finds it to be a celebration. It’s her way of having fun, it’s her way of asking the audience to have fun with her. No one cares but her family. They oblige. And that’s enough for her. She finds fulfilment. That, we find, is all she wants.

Marilyn Monroe is that child. This isn’t what I generalized from Colin Clark’s account. This is what I inferred from it. This is what I understood; this is what the dots looked like once I had connected them. It could be called beauty. It could be the film’s single biggest flaw. The misshapen creature masquerades intact and yearns to be loved behind the scenes. The film has us give it to her. All adoration, all warmth to our heart’s capacity. All the moments I could’ve thought the dots could be connected different – well, I didn’t think that. The film kept me with it. Michelle Williams did. For an hour and a half, I was Colin Clark. For an hour and a half, I wished I was.

‘My Week with Marilyn’ starts with ‘Heat Wave’ and ends with ‘That Old Black Magic.’ It begins and ends with a song in a complete circle. Nothing has changed. But something had happened. Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is a twenty three year old of impressive nobility but believes in cinema. He’s our Matthew from ‘the Dreamers.’ Marilyn (Michelle Williams) is his Isabelle. Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) is her Theo. They’re not twins, but they’re as inseparable. They’re husband and wife. I hope you get the crux of the story from these comparisons. You should’ve watched ‘the Dreamers.’ And you should watch ‘My Week with Marilyn’ as well. In both, you’ll find cinema at its romantic best.

Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) commissions Marilyn Monroe to play Elsie Marina as he takes his ‘the Prince and the Showgirl’ to the screen. It’s a role once played by his wife Vivian Leigh (Julia Ormond) on stage. Marilyn asks her why she didn’t play the role again. Vivian replies that her Larry thinks she’s too old for the role, which, she acknowledges, is the truth. Also true is the fact that she doesn’t want to lose her husband to a much younger competitor against whom she doesn’t stand a chance. She asks Colin to keep an eye on him for her. Laurence wants Colin to keep an eye on Marilyn, while Milton H. Greene (Dominic Cooper) wants him to lay off of her. He’s a business partner who, as he says, once got his tongue burnt. But young Colin is new to both. To Cinema. To Marilyn Monroe. It’s absurd for him to even consider the word ‘No.’

The film is Adrian Hodges’ adaptation of Colin Clark’s memoir ‘the Prince, the Showgirl and Me.’ It’s what he recounts of his days as Third Assistant to Olivier. “It was a dream come true,” he says. “And my only talent was to not close my eyes.” The film is an old man’s fond recollection of youth, of days chronicled by the youngster as they passed by. It’s a memoir not written but lived. There are two scenes in the very beginning where Colin is ordered to bring Ms. Monroe from her dressing room to the sets as it had become her custom to delay. On one occasion, he catches her without her makeup on. On the other, it’s her clothes. Much later in the film, the two of them go skinny-dipping in broad daylight where Marilyn, yet again, takes her clothes off in front of him. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” she says. He knows that. Not many people have seen her that way. Even lesser would actually write about it. He knows that as well.

It’s incredible how beautiful their story is in spite of the scandal it could brew. But would it cause any at all? In one scene in Colin’s omnipresence, he catches her in the middle of the night with a sheaf of Miller’s notes clutched to her chest, notes which we come to know are about her in a way she doesn’t approve of. Marilyn turns tearful when confronted; dizzy with further intimidation. She doesn’t like what Olivier does. She doesn’t like how Miller treats her either. But she approves of Colin. Would she then approve of his work, by which I mean this memoir? Absolutely, I would think. She asks him not to forget her. This is his way of showing he never has; that he never will. Not all truth is scandalous. Not all scandal is treachery. Neither are all who are treacherous cold-heartedly so. Not Marilyn. Not Colin, to wardrobe-girl Lucy (Emma Watson), even when he proves her right.

Michelle Williams is a bad impersonator but a great actress. She plays a template, not the person. She’s Marilyn Monroe off the sets of ‘the Prince and the Showgirl.’ On it, she’s Michelle Williams playing Marilyn playing Elsie Marina. A lot has been lost in the reworking that it looks better only through Colin’s eyes. I haven’t watched ‘the Prince and the Showgirl.’ I can’t imagine what one who has watched it would think of it after this film. Colin, that way, acts against his own suggestion of showing those clippings which worked than the ones which didn’t. But then he submits to us a different Marilyn – the one he saw. The more likeable version. Ms. Williams, if you remember, tap-danced to Ryan Gosling in ‘Blue Valentine.’ She tap-dances here too. And she winks. That’s another weapon she adds to the list. And that's not all.

Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier dazzles with wit than rendition. In some scenes, I thought, he drowns in a quest for self-importance. Those have been carefully written into character and context. The others, he has Colin to counsel. This is only the second time that I watch Branagh. The first was, of course, Gilderoy Lockhart in ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.’ He was aptly cast in both, I felt, in attention-seeking characters. I’ve no complaints whatsoever. Judi Dench, again, is perfectly at home playing Sybil Thorndike, a veteran actor in the production; eagle-eyed with a golden heart. There are two films, two stereotypes of characters that I associate her with. One is ‘M.’ The other is the Queen in ‘Shakespeare in Love.’ Here we have a delightful case of the latter. Dominic Cooper and Toby Jones are excusably cast, but I thought Emma Watson stretched it. She’s an important actress in an unimportant character. I found a case of bigger name against a stronger performance. A step-down on the faith ladder for me.

Colin cannot get over Marilyn Monroe. Milton discourages him to the best of his ability. Miller, on his part, needed to flee the country to gain composure. They have three different dimensions to the misshapen creature she is. The lover, the victim and the chosen protector. The presence of the other two makes me want to hear their side of the story. But like I always say, that’s another movie. This one is the lover’s take on their honeymoon. It’s simple. It’s sweet. It’s blind faith, you’ll observe. And in the end you’d find yourself asking for more.