TIFF Day 2, let’s do this!
The Brutalist
Christ. Where even to begin?
It’s a movie with a capital M.
That’s a hoary cliche, but if anything can fit into the tent of “important effort that only Hollywood can make” and “great man film” (that’s GREAT MAN) it’s Brady Corbett’s latest stab at auteurism.
I don’t remember a lot about Vox Lux, other than watching a digital screener of it as part and parcel of whatever awards season that was. That fuzzy and feverish stretch where critics like Hannah and I have to mainline a gajillion films in order to vote on our local and regional awards. I remember liking it, especially how it focused on the decade long ruin of a school shooting as it’s inciting incident. But The Brutalist? Baby, this is Oppenheimer level stuff. This is Orson Welles. This is the closest a filmmaker comes to kissing heaven.
There’s an easy conflation to make between films and novels, and the idea that a film can and should be called novelistic if it’s deemed worthy or is infused with such depth that it’s the only term that can be applied. That is most definitely the case here with Corbett’s unfurling of the life of fictional architect Laszlo Toth. A holocaust survivor and refugee who arrives on the shores of Ellis Island without a penny to his name and only the memory of his wife, still left in Europe, to carry him forth.
Broken up into three acts (with a prologue titled an “overture”, an intermission, and an epilogue) and stretching over the course of 3.5 hours; The Brutalist is a tough sell for the average movie-goer. Length-aside, its subject matter is something that hardly will attract the attention span of most, lacking the American oomph of a Robert Oppenheimer or the sprawl of a gangster tale. But let me tell you, once you’ve actually sat down for it and get immediately blasted away by the swells of its opening score and the pure visual arrest of its credit scroll, you two will become a believer. This story of an immense talent that spans decades is, presented in these confines, about as epic as the Manhattan Project or Daniel Plainview building his oil empire.
And like Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 masterpiece, this is also the story of obsession – in this case, artistic – and how it reflects back on its maker and the toll it takes on both his body and spirit. And it’s shot in Vista Vision, and thus the visual scope is huge, whether in the middle of a Pennsylvania field or a Manhattan alleyway.
I’m probably making it sound too stodgy using all these plaudits, so let me make something very clear. The Brutalist is, despite its length…despite its subject matter, extraordinarily accessible and absorbing, even from frame one. I’m going to embarrass myself by making a Citizen Kane comparison, but the echoes are eerie. Actor turned filmmaker produces a masterwork that excavates the warts and all life story of an American individualist and does it on the biggest canvas imaginable. I also can’t imagine like Welles, Corbett can do much better than this. But who could? It’s a masterpiece. Please see it.
5 stars
The Last Showgirl
The general appeal of this rests mostly on its acting as a Pamela Anderson comeback vehicle. At first blush there’s two directions this kind of material (an aging Las Vegas showgirl struggles to balance her personal life and the remains of her professional ambitions) can take. As a dyed in the wool Showgirls fan, the best case scenario is that Gia Coppola would embrace the ever-present ridiculousness of Vegas and create a new camp classic. The least interesting take would basically boil down to “The Wrestler but with the former star of Baywatch”. As you can guess from my brusqueness in the latter, this is exactly where Coppola takes the material.
There are two grating issues with The Last Showgirl that are impossible to overcome despite the nice narrative behind it, and the general want to support a project whose heart is in the right place. The more enduring problem is that the script does exactly what you think it’s going to do. There is nary a surprise to be found, with all of the tried and true rise and fall aspects of this kind of underdog narrative remaining firmly in place. Broadly, it even plays a bit too much like Aronofsky’s aforementioned film, even down to having basically the same parental-child conflict note for note. And it should be no surprise that learn that even given the seemingly natural pairing of actor and role, Anderson is no Mickey Rourke as the complexities of the relationships give way to the same squeaky, upbeat line readings that feel increasingly less like a character choice and more just off-key acting.
There are also some technical concerns. And I don’t know how to say this gently, but around a quarter of the film’s shots were out of focus. For whatever reason, anytime there’s a wide shot featuring multiple characters the picture becomes very fuzzy. I’d like to be generous and say it was a style choice, but given the apparent rushed nature of the shoot I think one can only blame incompetence.
A lost opportunity.
1.5 stars
The Life of Chuck
Before the screening, which was the world premiere of Mike Flanagan’s latest, I speed-read “The Life of Chuck” novella. It’s a decent read, if pretty cornball by King’s standards. It’s three acts play as a two-thirds Stephen King “best of” speed-run: the first section being a pre-apocalyptic “community in crisis” type story with his usual everyman protagonist, while the third chunk is the kind of “kid comes face to face with otherworldly thing” that he made as his bread and butter in the early part of his career. It’s the second section that is a little more unusual for him, and is the pure shot of feelgood. It’s also the part that I don’t think really works, with longer descriptions of dancing and an event that somehow feels sillier than any of the oddities of Chuck’s grandparents’ attic or the Twilight Zone-opener.
So with its live-action adaptation, we have Flanagan adapting schmaltzy King, who himself is no stranger to a little bit of cheese. For those who have read the novella, it’s an incredibly faithful adaptation – there’s only a handful of adjustments, most of them being of the “Flanagan monologue” variety.
That said, it mostly works well and is an improvement on the source material. The timing of dialogue is better here and something with this much dancing needs to be seen rather than described. It still occasionally veers towards Walter Mitty “life is wonderful/we’re all wonderful” territory, but I judge it worthy of being among the good side of King on screen. I think the third act, which is centered on the title character in his childhood is where The Life of Chuck is at its strongest. Flanagan is adept at capturing that same sort of pre-teen wonder that’s such a King trademark. In the big celebratory scene, I was having Fableman’s flashbacks, it’s that same kind of warm hug of adolescent triumph. It’s nice.
Also, having King, Flanagan, Hiddleston and the rest of the cast all sitting behind me was an experience in itself. You just really can’t quite punctuate the sight of Tom Hiddleston watching himself on screen, or Stephen King sitting next to Mark Hamill – two enormous pillars of my childhood, just right there over my shoulder. I wish I could have asked him about my Wind Through the Keyhole theory.
3.5 stars