Sunday, March 17, 2024

The American Society of Magical Negroes: A Review

 

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGICAL NEGROES

The term "Magical Negro" is shorthand for a black character whose entire existence is to offer sage wisdom to the white protagonist. Perhaps a good film mocking this trope could be made. The American Society of Magical Negroes is not it. Boring, insipid and in its own way racist, The American Society of Magical Negroes fumbles badly whatever ideas rattled in its head.

Meek artist Aren (Justice Smith) is quickly recruited by Roger (David Allen Grier) into a secret society of black people whose entire purpose is to placate white people to prevent said white people from going on murderous rampages against black people. After practicing with an insecure white policeman whom he gives confidence to, Aren's first official assignment is Jason Monk (Drew Tarver), a web designer at Meetbox,  a facial recognition company. 

Unbeknownst to Aren, also working there is Lizzie (An-Li Bogan), a pretty girl whom he met at a coffee shop (after accidentally spilling coffee on her). To his dismay, Aren must fix Jason's professional and romantic life, one that includes Lizzie. Meetbox is in the middle of a scandal due to its failure to distinguish between faces in Ghana, a glitch that was of Jason's making. Despite this, Jason has been selected to present the new and improved facial recognition system to Jason's idol, Meetbox CEO Mick (Rupert Friend). It might have been Lizzie's work, but Jason still gets use out of his white male privilege.

Aren, however, is starting to get a sense of himself. So are other Magical Negroes, causing Magical Negro Queen Dede (Nicole Byer) to lose her ability to float. She has already expelled one Magical Negress, forcing her to live as a "regular black woman" (and thus, removing her protection from certain death at the hands of white people). Now she faces greater rebellion by Aren. Will he be able to lead his people to the promised land while still landing the "ethnic" Lizzie?


I remember hearing something about some kind of outrage over the word "Negro" appearing on black crayons. I figured that this was some kind of Internet joke, but apparently not. I came across a petition to remove the word "negro" from Crayola crayons because "negro" was offensive. Never mind that "negro" is the literal Spanish word for the color "black" and that the offensive crayon also contained the French word for "black" (noir). To the creator of this Change.org petition, the word "negro" had to be expunged in the same way that Confederate statues, the country music groups Lady Antebellum and the Dixie Chicks (now Lady A and The Chicks respectively) and Gone with the Wind needed to be removed. I read the comments by those signing the "No Negro Crayons" unsure if they are serious or seriously stupid.

Watching The Magical Society of Magical Negroes, I am reminded of this faux-rage because its thinking is as shallow as those who find a foreign language needs to be altered due to their own sensibilities (and as a side note, the creation of "Latinx" falls into that mindset). Writer/director Kobi Libii is not subtle about his ideas. The film climaxes in an America Ferrera in Barbie-like rant about how "this country wants (Aren) dead". I would argue that this country does not give a damn about Aren, but it has nothing to do with his race.

Rather, it is because Aren is, to use a good Yiddish term, a nebbish. Right from the opening, Aren is so meek and docile that it would be a wonder if anyone actually cared about him to even bother hating him because he's biracial. There's a quick mention by Aren that his mother is white, but this is irrelevant to The American Society of Magical Negroes. Whatever conflicts already existed within Aren about his identity are not explored in this blink-and-you-miss it moment.

As a side note, Aren's art is ugly and the gallery owner is right: if he won't fight for his artwork, why should she? His yarn art is being rejected because it is awful, not because he is black. This may be a subconscious recognition from Libii that he may believe his creative output is rejected because of his race versus the fact that it isn't good. 


Libii stumbles greatly in his worldbuilding. Within the first ten to fifteen minutes, Aren gets swept into the world of the ASMN, but there is no sense of mystery or logic to this universe. Who is Dede? Why is she the Queen of the Magical Negroes? Why does she float in the air? What does Thomas Jefferson and Monticello have to do with anything? None of these questions are answered. I am not sure they are even asked. Why not just jump into Jason's story rather than take up time with the insecure cop? Why also would Ghanaians actually want facial recognition? I figure this was to suggest that "all black people look alike", but again, would the lack of facial recognition in Ghana cause this much worldwide outrage?

The American Society of Magical Negroes ends with Lizzie herself being part of a secret society: SOSWAG (The Society of Supportive Wives and Girlfriends). I figure this was meant to be a great twist. I push back against that because Lizzie was neither a wife nor girlfriend to anyone, let alone a supportive one. It's the last unclever moment in a film that imagines itself much funnier and smarter than it is.

It is curious that Libii could have had a better story if he had put a greater focus on the love triangle between Aren, Lizzie and Jason. The accidental encounter between Aren and Lizzie in another other film would have been the beginning of a "meet-cute" story. We could have even made Aren a magical being, one of a long line of them, who finds himself falling for his assignment. There is potential in that idea. However, The American Society of Magical Negroes is more interested in trying to find racism everywhere than in mining its potential.

I cannot say what kind of actor Justice Smith is. The two other films that I have seen him in (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) have him playing the same type of character that he played here. In The American Society of Magical Negroes, he is playing what I think of as Woody Allen's illegitimate black son: a total nebbish, weak, meek, halting and stumbling. It is to where I now genuinely wonder if Justice Smith is acting or being. He has played the same character three times, so my growing idea that this is how he is in real life is not without some evidence.

No one really "acts" in The American Society of Magical Negroes, though I think Grier and Bogan are better than the material. To be fair, the brief parodies of The Legend of Bagger Vance and The Green Mile, heavy-handed as they were, did have the potential to be amusing (though the former used billiards rather than golf). I would argue, however, that 1923 and 1955 were different from 2024. 

The American Society of Magical Negroes is too convinced of its own moral rightness and cleverness to be good. It is not funny, it is not romantic, it is not insightful. It is worse than nothing; it is boring. I was nodding off by the end, awakened only by Justice Smith yelling about how American wanted him dead. I know America would not care one way or the other.  

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Rasputin: The Mad Monk. A Review

 

RASPUTIN: THE MAD MONK

Rasputin: The Mad Monk is a Hammer Films production, which may explain why the film is less biopic and more horror film. With only a magnetic performance from Christopher Lee to recommend it, Rasputin: The Mad Monk tells us nothing of the rise and fall of this most notorious of figures.

Renegade mystic Grigori Rasputin (Lee) finds pleasures in the flesh of nubile bar-wenches, especially after performing apparent miracles. Scandal forces Rasputin out of his monastery, but this is a blessing in disguise.

This allows him to travel to St. Petersburg, where he quickly befriends two people. The first is disgraced Doctor Boris Zargo (Richard Pasco), who is forced to make a living by challenging others to drinking contests. The second is Sonia (Barbara Shelley), who happens to be a lady-in-waiting to the Czarina Alexandra Renee Asherson). Rasputin quickly bullies the former and seduces the latter, his mesmerizing power irresistible to everyone.  

With Sonia in his grip, he gets her to endanger the Czarevitch so that he can come to save him. Rasputin now is close to total power, alarming two other courtiers. Sonia's brother Peter (Dinsdale Landen) is appalled at Sonia's seduction, but now enraged at her suicide due to Rasputin's influence and rejection of her as his once-mistress. His friend Ivan (Francis Matthews) initially wants nothing to do with any plot to kill this meddlesome priest, but finally agrees to try and kill him. Rasputin, however, proves hard to kill, and it will take extraordinary measures to eliminate this threat once and for all.


It is surprising that the real story of Rasputin, particularly his gruesome end, is not exploited in The Mad Monk despite the great opportunity to do so.  In the film, we see him fall to his end and that's the end of it. In reality, the man was shot, poisoned and eventually thrown into a river where he eventually drowned. I do not think, however, that The Mad Monk was interested in historical accuracy.

Instead, it was interested in a lurid subject that could mix sex with horror. We get that right from the beginning, when this shadowy figure comes to an inn and first saves a woman from death and then tries to rape her daughter. The Mad Monk uses Rasputin's story to create a more traditional horror film. 

The Mad Monk's screenplay by Anthony Hinds (writing as John Elder) does not answer what genuinely drives Rasputin. Is it a lust for power? Is it mere arrogance? Insanity? Truly demonic powers? We also barely touch on how dangerous Rasputin was or his hold on Czar Nicholas II and especially Czarina Alexandra. There is a hint of it when we see Rasputin hypnotizing the Czarina, but unlike the other women he meets, he has a strictly hands-off approach with her. Why not seduce the wife of Russia's autocrat? It would have been a major feather in his cap, but The Mad Monk does not bother explaining this. It also does not make clear if Vanessa (Suzan Farmer), another lady-in-waiting who serves as the bait for Rasputin's killing, actually sees Sonia put the Czarevitch in danger or not. 


To be fair, Hinds does throw in some good lines. The Czarina's personal physician Dr. Zieglov (John Bailey) learns he, through Rasputin's influence, is being replaced with the disgraced Zargo. Angrily turning to Rasputin, he says, "I always knew she was stupid. Now I know she's mad!".  

The film has some peculiar acting. Shelley's Sonia is at times comical in her hysterics. Of particular note is when Rasputin dumps her. Her cries of agonized despair at losing her lover along with attempts to kill him will be more funny than horrifying to viewers. Lee, however, excels in the role. He is intense throughout, making Rasputin a menacing figure. Director Don Sharp has a great moment when Peter enters Rasputin's mansion, a gift from the Empress. All we hear is Lee's voice as Peter tries to find him in the dark. It is a very effective sequence, made more so by Lee's voice acting.

Rasputin: The Mad Monk was, again, not interested in history but in horror. While it did not hit the mark with me, it is not without some positives. Christopher Lee would have made a great Rasputin in a better film, but on the whole, no one will be mad about the monk. 

1869-1916


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Tevya: A Review (Review #1797)

 

TEVYA

There is scant love for My Yiddishe Papa in Tevya, the first film version of the Tevye the Milkman stories later adapted into the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Tevya, released in the extraordinary cinematic year of 1939, shows that Yiddish-language films could more than keep up with the big studios. 

Simple Jewish milkman Tevye (writer/director Maurice Schwartz) lives a relatively contented life with his wife Golde (Rebecca Weintraub) and his younger daughter Chava (Miriam Riselle). Chava, more intellectual than her parents or visiting sister Tseytl (Paula Lubelski) also has another difference. This "Jew-girl" has fallen in love with Fedya Galagan (Leon Liebgold), a Ukrainian gentile. To the delight of the gentiles and the horror of her family, Chava marries Fedya, moving away from both her family and her heritage.

Now dead to Tevye, he faces more hardships when his new in-laws push to expel Tevye's family from the village despite having lived in relative peace and harmony. More troubles come when Golde dies, leaving Tevye adrift in a hostile world. The Galagans are successful in forcing Tevye and his family out, and now they contemplate where to go. There's Israel, America, Argentina or Palestine. Chava hears of her family's plight. She is also horrified when she sees that her in-laws stole her mother's petticoat despite it being part of Tevye's fire sale. Sneaking away, she begs Tevye to take her back and go into exile with him. Now reconciled, the family heads off to their ancestral lands to start afresh.


The surprising thing about Tevya, or at least the first half, is how much of it takes place outside. There are few indoor scenes for about half of the film. In fact, it is not until Chava's wedding that we start getting more and more interior scenes. I do not know why Schwartz decided to make Tevya such an outdoor film. It does make it feel free and natural, so that is a plus.  

As a director, Maurice Schwartz moves things well and has some beautiful imagery. At Golde's death, we see Chava standing outside the window, unable to grieve with her family as the rain pounds down on her. When Tevye gives the Sabbath blessing after declaring Chava dead, it is also a beautifully filmed sequence. 

As an actor, Schwartz excels in making Tevye a simple man. There is a simplicity to Tevye, one who accepts almost all things that come his way. Commenting to his horse when the animal does not move despite the lashings, Tevye quips, "He's accustomed to the whip as I am to poverty", revealing his wisdom and self-awareness. He even allows for a bit of comedy when he comes across three Jewish women who beg him to let them ride on his cart to get back home. "A hundred-pound Jewess has two tons of talk!" he bemoans.

There is much to praise in Tevya, but there is a major issue in the film. That issue is Miriam Riselle as Chava. She is absolutely appalling in the role. Rarely if ever does Riselle come across as anything other than hysterical. Her acting is so overdone that it becomes maddening to watch. I genuinely cannot remember one moment in Tevye where she was not so over-the-top in her manner. It was as if she was a parody of a silent film actress who was thrust into a sound film, and a Yiddish one at that. 

There is no other way around it: Miriam Riselle gave one of the worst performances that I have ever seen on film in any language. Overdramatic, almost cartoonish, it stands in stark contrast to everyone in the film. I walk that back a bit. Leon Liebgold as her goyim love interest was also a bit over-the-top in his declarations of love for the "Jew-girl" (the film's words). However, he was nowhere near Riselle's histrionics and almost crazed facial and body movements.

Tevya is a beautiful looking film, one that captures this now-lost Yiddish world. If not for Miriam Riselle, Tevya would be among 1939's myriad of masterpieces. However, it is still a film to holds up well and moves audiences Jewish and gentile alike. 

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Bob Marley: One Love. A Review (Review #1796)

 

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE

It is the rare person who does not like either reggae or its most well-known ambassador, Bob Marley. Bob Marley: One Love is a Marley estate approved biopic on the superstar. That may be the problem. 

Covering the years 1976 to 1978, One Love details certain events in the life of Jamaican Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Amir). We start with the troubles inflicting the island nation, with rival factions vying for power. Amidst the chaos, Marley has decided to host Smile Jamaica, a peace concert to unite the people. Nefarious forces, however, do not want the Smile Jamaica concert to go on. 

This leads to an assassination attempt days before the concert. Bob Marley's wife, Rita (Lashana Lynch) is seriously injured, barely surviving. Bob is hit but not majorly injured. Despite continued protests, Marley rises to the occasion to be the Smile Jamaica headliner.

Still, it is unsafe, so he sends his wife and children to live with his mother in Maryland while he goes to London. Here, he sees the rise of punk music and, while overhearing the Ernest Gold score to the film Exodus, he is inspired musically to create his own work. Marley finds kinship in both Gold's stirring opening theme and the struggle of the Jewish people for a homeland, matching his own hopes for his Rastafarian faith. Out of Exodus the soundtrack, comes Exodus the reggae album. 

While Exodus is a major worldwide hit, Marley still cannot get tour dates to Africa. He also has to deal with shady business practices from Don Taylor (Anthony Welsh), his business manager. Finally, he has a melanoma diagnosis that will ultimately kill him in 1981. He does, however, return to Jamaica and in archival footage, see Bob Marley perform at the independence celebration for the new African nation of Zimbabwe.

Perhaps the most curious element in Bob Marley: One Love is how the film failed to make a case as to why anyone would care about Bob Marley. This is especially true for anyone who does not already know Marley or his music. There may be a few people unaware of who Bob Marley, the artist, was. One Love will not enlighten them given that his creative evolution is so haphazardly handled. In a sense, One Love almost expects the viewer to have some background about Marley and reggae. 

A lot of One Love expects you to have at the least a Wikipedia-sized knowledge about the subject. The film spends its first thirty-odd minutes on the Smile Jamaica story. In a lot of biopics, the events leading up to the concert would have been the film itself, with Smile Jamaica being the triumphant conclusion. However, One Love feels oddly rushed to get to what it thinks is a major turning point in the Marley story. 

I do not doubt that getting shot at is a major turning point, but outside of archival footage we do not get a firm background into the chaos in Jamaica or the violence in Kingston. Why are there two opposing camps? Why is Marley in particular targeted? Why does he have this hold among the Jamaican people? Same goes for when creating Exodus. What inspired him to delve into deeper subjects? It is, if not strictly speaking a guessing game at least an unanswered question. 

As a side note, I am dubious that Gold's Exodus score, brilliant and iconic as it now is, did inspire Marley's Exodus album. 



Over and over, One Love fails to make Marley interesting. We do not get the man or the myth. Instead, we get bits and pieces of each, never forming a full portrait of either. That may be due to having four screenwriters: Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, Zach Baylin and director Reinaldo Marcus Green (with story by Winter and Flowers). Having so many people made One Love unfocused, as if unsure of where to go. The decision to focus, or at least hit on, two events (the Smile Jamaica concert and Exodus recording) were curious ones. I figure a whole film could have been made on either. A whole film could have been built around his Zimbabwe concert. One Love could have also been a straightforward birth-to-earth biopic.

Instead, it just went here and there, never building on anything.

Part of One Love's failed efforts to make a case for a Marley biopic may be due to the Marley estate itself. Having the Marley family approve the film (we get Marley's son Ziggy open the film telling us as much). With the Marley family looking over things, we get a surprisingly clean and safe portrait of the man. Very few hints are made about Marley's myriad infidelities. Rita mentions it in passing, and there are two "blink-and-you-miss-them" moments where another woman may be visiting Marley. It is a strange decision to attempt to whitewash Marley's less admirable qualities.

It is stranger to not show us his creativity. Again, we get bits and pieces, but they amount to little.

Some credit can be given to the lead performances. Ben-Adir did his best to capture Marley's accent and body movements. However, that is all he did (and as a side note, I thought he was going to topple over in dizziness after performing War). Part of the blame is the script, but part of it has to be with Ben-Adir. Lynch was slightly better, but not by much. If there was any sense of anger about Marley's womanizing, we wouldn't know it. We also wouldn't know of her own infidelities through One Love

Come to think of it, we do not know Bob and Rita Marley through One Love. Perhaps the 2012 documentary Marley would be more informative (though I have yet to see it as of this writing). Until then, Bob Marley: One Love fails to even be a good primer on what should have been a fascinating subject. As it stands, no one will be Jamming to Bob Marley: One Love.

1945-1981

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Madame Web: A Review (Review #1795)

 

MADAME WEB

When is a Spider-Man movie not a Spider-Man movie? 

I was, to be honest, unaware that there was such a thing as a Spider-Man Cinematic Universe where our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man does not actually appear or is even mentioned by name. Instead, we get various characters from his world with the vague notion that he (be it Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield or Tom Holland) is hovering about somewhere in Queens. 

All of these films have some connection to Spidey but don't actually feature the webslinger. There were Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, films that proved wildly popular and successful which despite all logic I did not end up hating. There was Morbius, as great a debacle as any in the comic book film genre.  Now we get Madame Web, the newest effort to create a franchise that seems doomed from the get-go. Perhaps it is to the film's credit that I did not end up hating Madame Web, even if I cannot speak for other members of the audience, but more on that later.

Darkest Peru, 1973. Constance Webb (Kerry Biché) is a pregnant scientist searching for a mysterious spider with healing properties. Once found, however, her fellow explorer Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) betrays the group, killing everyone to get the rare spider. Connie is hit in the chaos, but the Arañas, a mysterious people who have been the protectors of the rainforest and have spider-like abilities, manage to save Connie's baby if not Connie herself.

Move on thirty years, where that baby is now Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson). She's a cynical, emotionally distant EMT in NYC, saving lives but vaguely aware of whom she is saving. Her closest friend is her EMT partner, one Ben Parker (Adam Scott), and even that is not a particularly close relationship. Cassie has a near-death experience that leads to her having visions of the immediate future, though that future is not set. 

Good thing that Sims is not aware of Cassie's clairvoyance or her connection to Connie. He is too busy trying to track down three teenage girls whom he has recurring visions of them killing him when he is older. Sims figures that if he can kill them now, he can avoid his fate. He uses vaguely futuristic technology to track down the three troublemakers. There is sweet-natured Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), sarcastic rich bitch Mattie Franklin (Celeste O'Connor) and timid Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced). 

Cassie eventually finds that they are all connected, and she becomes their unofficial protector when she has a vision of a strange spider-like man hunting them all down. She asks Ben to care for them while she goes to Darkest Peru to uncover the past that binds them all together. Ben, who has his own issues in caring for his pregnant sister-in-law Mary (Emma Roberts), does his best, but they still face great danger. Will our heroines save themselves and bring Ezekiel down? Will Ben Parker be a good Uncle Ben to his new and unnamed nephew?

Is it damning with faint praise to say that Madame Web is not the worst film of 2024 that I have seen so far? Out of the six 2024 film releases that I have seen as of this writing, Madame Web is the second-best. That is not a compliment: Madame Web is so clunky, lifeless and pointless that it is inexplicable as to why Sony and Columbia in association with Marvel continue plunging into films that just do not work. 

Everything in Madame Web is pretty much a fiasco. Right from the beginning, director S.J. Clarkson makes one oddball decision after another that it quickly becomes a fun experiment finding which element is the worst one. The film opens with a very poorly shot sequence, where the camera for no discernable reason zooms all over the place while also indulging in various Dutch angles. One genuinely wondered if the cameraman was having a stroke and they decided to just keep rolling. More bizarrely, this same sequence was essentially replayed later in the film.

Granted, the information Cassie is presented is new to her. However, not once did anyone ask when going over Clarkson's screenplay (writing along with Matt Samaza, Burk Sharpless and Claire Parker) why they just couldn't go flashback instead of repeating themselves. Add to that the sheer illogic of it all: Cassie, who is technically a fugitive, leaves three teen girls with her bestie, flies to Peru, goes into the jungle, manages to find the mysterious Spider-People and then returns to New York in apparently a matter of hours? This trip would have taken days if not weeks, with Cassie and the girls being hunted down at every second. You can suspend disbelief for only so long before it becomes too ridiculous.

The screenplay, over and over, appears to go out of its way to be idiotic. What the villain actually does is unclear. Did he gain fame and power with the spider? How does he get visions of his future assassins? How do he and Cassie manage to communicate telepathically? Why insist on killing the three in one blow when killing them one-by-one would have been easier? 

If that weren't enough, having a call-out to a previous Spider-Man film is eyerolling. "And when you take on the responsibility, great power will come," the Spider-King tells Cassie. On a myriad of levels, this does not make any sense. "With great power, comes great responsibility" is from the 2002 Spider-Man film. However, Madame Web cannot tie itself into the Tobey Maguire version because Uncle Ben is already a senior citizen and Peter is a teenager. Madame Web, moreover, is set in 2003 and the unnamed nephew to Ben Parker is born at the end of the film. It can tie in, albeit forced, with the Andrew Garfield version, but again it still would be almost impossible to do so. Forget the Tom Holland version. Neither Garfield or Holland, to my recollection, quoted the "Great Power" line, so why use it here?

Actually, forget connecting Madame Web to any of the "Sony-Verse" films. 

Madame Web's disaster goes beyond the screenplay. Everyone in the film is so blank and emotionless. It is astounding to see such a collection of bad performances. One bad performance, I can understand. Having the entire cast be awful is on the director. 

Dakota Johnson is not even trying. One wonders if she was literally drugged into performing. She recited her lines as if she was trying to figure out what the words meant, bringing nothing to the role. Cassie has no personality, no charisma, nothing that indicates she is a functioning human. The trio of Sweeney, Merced and O'Connor all similarly look expressionless. They never connected to each other, but oddly they never looked like they were in conflict. 

Tahar Rahim is an interesting case. He is French, and as such I do not know how strong his English is. He may be quite fluent, but Madame Web can't show us how. There is a curious disconnect between when he speaks and when we see him speak, like the dubbing is off. At times, I wondered if the film was trying to hide him speaking (hence the strange use of Dutch angles and negative space). Scott and Emma Roberts as Ben's sister-in-law Mary were there to do a job and move on.

Madame Web is a nothing. While I have read and heard the vitriol about it, calling it the worst film they have ever seen or the worst ever made, I thought of it more as an enjoyably bad film. It is not good. It is not even a "so bad it's good" film. It is just that in a world that has Lisa Frankenstein and Argylle, I cannot call Madame Web the worst film of 2024.

The best summation that I can give Madame Web comes not from me but from another audience member at the screening I attended. While he did not shout out his comments, he was audible enough in his succinct review. He said, and I quote, "This movie sucked". That pretty much captures Madame Web perfectly.

The Original Madame (Web)

DECISION: D-

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Lisa Frankenstein: A Review

 

LISA FRANKENSTEIN

I am mercifully not nostalgic enough for the 1980s to want to see something like Lisa Frankenstein. Unsure if it is a comedy with horror elements or a funny horror film, Lisa Frankenstein does have some good elements that push the film hopelessly down.

Our heroine, Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) has some goth girl elements but is not a pure goth. Her stepsister Taffy (Liza Soberano) is a pleasant, cheerful cheerleader who is genuinely fond of her sister. Taffy does her best to get Lisa to mix with her classmates, but Lisa has her heart only for two people. One of them is Michael Trent (Henry Eikenberry), the brooding, hunky school literary magazine editor. The other is a dead man, a Victorian buried at a bachelor's cemetery.

At the disastrous house party where nerd Doug (Bryce Romero) puts his hand on her breast and her hand on his penis, she flees, inebriated and confused, into that cemetery and makes a wish that her Victorian man be with her. As the song goes, lightning strikes and we get The Creator (Cole Sprouse). He is a shambles, even for a corpse, but Lisa hides him out. 

It is not long before Lisa's wicked stepmother Janet (Carla Gugino) threatens to send her away. Fortunately, the Creature is there to save her by perhaps accidentally killing Janet. He can even get Janet's ear to replace his missing one, as Lisa is a skilled seamstress. The Creator is also missing two other body parts: a hand and a penis. Will Lisa find she can kill two birds with one stone. Will others discover her dangerous necrophile liaisons? 


At first, I thought Lisa Frankenstein could squeak by as being slightly better than something like Mean Girls. However, as I thought on it, I think that if given the choice between the two, I would opt for the musical than the non-musical. It is a shame because there are a couple of things in Lisa Frankenstein that do work.

First is Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows. She reminded me of a young Helena Bonham Carter in both look and mannerism. She was doing her best to sell the comedy aspect of Lisa Frankenstein, playing the part as if she were in a quirkier film than the one she ended up in. I do not think that anyone will ever hear REO Speedwagon's Can't Fight This Feeling again in the same way after her overtly bombastic manner. 

While Newton was good, for me the clear standout is Soberano as Taffy. In perhaps the only positive element in Diablo Cody's screenplay, Taffy is not the stereotypical wicked stepsister. She's actually quite pleasant and relatable. Friendly, genuinely fond of Lisa to where she stands up for her to both her mother and her classmates, it is nice to see a film where the stepsiblings are actually good people. It's a credit to Soberano's performance that I ended up wanting the film to be from her perspective: the sweet girl caught up in Lisa's looniness. 

As such, the "twist" involving her and Michael seems forced. Moreover, whatever Michael's flaws, I do not think he merited his fate. Taffy certainly did not merit her fate. Here she is: a pleasant, happy-go-lucky girl who genuinely cares for Lisa (though to be fair, apt to say mildly insulting things). She, through Lisa's actions, unknowingly loses her mother, sees her lover hacked and is left deeply traumatized by the entire ordeal. That she can genuinely grieve Lisa along with her stepfather Dale (Joe Chrest) is a credit to how Taffy was not just the better character but the better person.

Sprouse, I imagine, wants to break more and more away from his Disney days of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Unfortunately, he did not have much to do, as The Creator was inarticulate until the very end. Perhaps to his credit, he did have better facial expressions when he started becoming more human. However, it did not afford him much of an opportunity to show if he could do anything more.

Going back a bit to how Lisa Frankenstein went after people with almost a vindictive manner, I find that Doug too did not deserve his fate. We see him only twice: when he manhandles Lisa and when he is lured to his end. In no way would I endorse Doug's behavior of feeling Lisa up or putting her hand on his penis. However, he was drunk and not in full command of himself. Again, while his behavior is wrong, it does not merit his fate. 

Lisa Frankenstein wants to echo such films as Heathers or perhaps Beetlejuice (the Tim Burton influence being quite strong, especially with the silhouette opening). The difference though is that the people murdered in Heathers were almost all awful, making their ends if not morally right at least not horrifying or cruel. Lisa Frankenstein, conversely, seems to hit people who are not awful enough to celebrate their ends. You cannot empathize with that kind of cruelty, especially if you push your film to want you to like Lisa.

Why Doug says that his actions were "not Christian" seems a strange thing to say given that he was not strictly speaking, apologizing for his actions. 

Lisa Frankenstein might have some good ideas juggling about, but it does not work. This is especially true of the directing. I am at a loss to understand why Zelda Williams was given such a project for her feature film debut. It is hard to imagine that being Robin Williams' daughter did not help in some way. 

Yes, people in the theater that I saw Lisa Frankenstein were laughing when Michael's dick was cut off to On the Wings of Love. I was not. I was not so much horrified or appalled as I was perturbed by that attempt at forced humor. I, again, got lost in logic, thinking that the penis would no longer function even if Lisa successfully sewed it on. I leave it to you to decide if seeing what is technically necrophilia counts as comedy or not.

Lisa Frankenstein could have been good. I did like Newton and Soberano. As it stands however, the film did not win me over. At least it is better than Argylle, so that is a plus in its favor.

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Anatomy of a Fall: A Review

 

ANATOMY OF A FALL

It is said that there is more than one side to a story. Anatomy of a Fall, is a well-crafted albeit long film that peels the layers off a potential crime.

An interview between noted author Sandra Voyter (Sandra Huller) and a student is drowned out by music from her husband Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis). Their visually impaired son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) takes a walk in the woods near the Swiss chalet they are staying at. When he returns with his guide dog Snoop, Daniel finds Samuel laying dead on the ground.

What happened to Samuel? Did he accidentally fall, as Sandra initially says to her friend and attorney, Vincent Renzi (Swann Arlaud)? The police do not think it was an accident, especially since Daniel gives conflicting evidence about where he was in relation to his exact location. Sandra remembers Samuel had a previous suicide attempt which they kept hidden. No dice though, as Sandra is now charged with murder.

Did she kill Samuel? Evidence piles up against her. She had an affair with another woman a year before. She had also taken a plot from Samuel's long-gestating novel and crafted a bestseller. Sandra insists that Samuel knew about both and even encouraged the latter. Still, more circumstantial evidence mounts against Sandra. There is a recording of a fight between them, where we don't know who is hitting whom. Her novels could reflect her thoughts, but do those involve killing a man she still resents for being partially responsible for their son's disability?

Only the visually impaired witness can save her, but can he provide the key to solve the mystery?


If I find a fault in Anatomy of a Fall, it is in length. The film runs two hours and thirty two minutes long, and I think that will test more than a few viewers' patience and endurance. It is not exactly a flaw in director Justine Triet's screenplay (cowritten with Arthur Harari). I can see how Anatomy of a Fall builds its case so to speak, in a calm and deliberate manner. 

However, perhaps in this case, it is too calm and deliberate. I found that the film did not pick up interest until we got to the trial. Here are Huller's best moments, where she again in a calm but firm manner attempts to defend herself from the verbal barbs from the Prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz). Throughout the film, Huller is excellent as the besieged Sandra because she does not become histrionic. She does show emotion: anger when we see her fighting with Samuel. For the most part, Huller plays Sandra in a calm but firm manner: aware of the situation but not giving into despair. 

She also has the advantage of acting in at least two languages. Anatomy of a Fall establishes that English is the middle ground between the primarily German-speaking Samuel and primarily French-speaking Sandra. As such, Huller speaks mostly in English, at least at one point stating that the translation from English to French does not accurately state what she said. I do not remember if she also spoke German, but it would fit. This element is used well in Anatomy of a Fall, where Sandra becomes openly flustered at her struggle to make herself understood in French. 

Huller is well-matched by the other cast members large and small. Arlaud is methodical as Sandra's attorney/friend, able to parry with the Prosecutor while being blunt with Sandra about her chances. Reinartz's Prosecutor is sharp and cutting, able to effectively slice her defense with almost malicious glee. Of all the other performances, it is Machado-Graner that holds our attention as Daniel. An innocent who is also wary of people, caught in a terrible situation, he sorts as best he can through this tangled web.

Anatomy of a Fall is a fine film, though I wish it were shorter. Overall, it is a strong film with strong performances, though I would recommend an intermission for the viewer.