The Lady in the Van

Alan Bennett: The houses in the Crescent were built as villas for the Victorian middle class and their basements are now being enlarged by couples who are liberal in outlook, but not easy with their new-found prosperity. Guilt in a word. Which means that in varying degrees, they tolerate Miss Shepherd. Their consciences absolved by her presence.

The Lady in the Van, directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Alan Bennett about his real life experience, tells the story of a homeless woman (Maggie Smith) of questionable sanity who lived in Bennett's (Jim Broadbent) driveway for fifteen years. She is a study in contradictions: a woman who professes religious visions while treating everyone around her like second class citizens, who professes independence while manipulating a community into supporting her, who professes innocence while trying to escape the mistakes of her past. While she struggles with her own demons, her presence forces the whole neighborhood to examine just how much they're willing to help their fellow man, especially when their fellow man is so cantankerous and ungrateful.

While the plot rambles a bit and Bennett indulges his own introspection more than I care for, The Lady in the Van is an interesting character study of Miss Shepherd, an unusual and sometimes unlikeable woman that shows us everything that makes us uncomfortable around the homeless. The neighborhood she parks her van in, which is populated by self-professed liberals, is confronted with their own hypocrisies as they alternate between giving her charity and attempting non-confrontational methods of forcing her to leave. Bennett, another interesting, often contradictory character, attributes his own charity to timidity but as we see the lengths he goes to to take care of Miss Shepherd it becomes difficult to believe. Smith and Broadbent share a marvelous chemistry onscreen and Smith manages to make Miss Shepherd into someone we love at the same time she is driving us and Bennett crazy.

The Lady in the Van is a quiet film about a woman who, under normal circumstances, would be ignored and ultimately forgotten. Bennett's story of the woman who lived in his driveway shows us the charity we perform has as great an impact on us as it does on its recipients and that every person has a story to tell. It's a film well worth watching, if just to make us question whether we would really sacrifice the cleanliness of our bathroom for the dignity of a person who will never say thank you.

The Station Agent

Fin: It's funny how people see me and treat me since I'm really just a simple, boring person.

The Station Agent, directed by Tom McCarthy, is a quiet film, sometimes funny, sometimes serious, much like its characters' lives that it manages to portray so realistically. It tells the story of Fin (Peter Dinklage), a train enthusiast and dwarf who, after the death of a friend, moves to an abandoned train station to live in quiet solitude. While there, he becomes friends with Joe (Bobby Cannavale), an aggressively friendly, cheerful man who forces his way into Fin's life, and Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), an artist in mourning over her young son's death. As the three become friends, they are forced to confront the problems they have been trying to ignore and become part of the community they have shunned.

This is a quiet film without the strong emotional peaks and valleys of an ordinary drama but instead with gentle slopes that make it seem as though we know these people, that we're simply peeking into the window of their lives. The performances are especially convincing, especially Peter Dinklage who manages to express so much with so little. Each character is someone we can recognize with problems we can relate to. Fin feels ostracized because of his dwarfism and so cuts himself off from people and opportunities in order to avoid becoming a spectacle but by making himself so much of a mystery he becomes more of one. But as people continue to force their way into his life, led by the charmingly irrepressible Joe, he finds there are a whole town full of people willing to accept him as he is. Joe is the heart of the film. He is the only one to not get bogged down by his personal problems and instead almost bullheadedly insists on befriending the two most troubled and reclusive people in town by his positivity and open mindedness. Olivia has run away to this small town to try and recover from her loss but she is unable to let go of the past. The three of them have incredible chemistry in a plot that never rushes the relationships which helps add to the realism and depth.

The Station Agent is a wonderful film about the value of community and the power of friendship in times of trouble. Though it takes it's time, it is itself timeless with likable characters and a realistic look at the world make it a sweet, unforgettable story.

The Good Dinosaur

Butch: If you ain't scared, you ain't alive.

I'm always willing to give Pixar movies the benefit of the doubt but this one was tough even for me. I'm a little surprised Pixar even released it with how many problems it had even on a conceptual level. In the trailer, we're pitched that this is an alternate timeline where dinosaurs were never wiped out and wound up evolving along with people. But in truth, this was really just a clumsy excuse to have a dinosaur be the main character. If you substituted anything else (foxes, dogs, robots), the story would have turned out the same. At its core, it's just a story about a boy who gets lost and has to find his way home. Unfortunately, it wound up as a worse, confused version of Finding Nemo.

The film opens with a dinosaur family on a farm. Arlo is the youngest son, small and scared on everything from small bugs to lighting storms. We spend far to long on the farm to establish just how a big a sissy Arlo really is but we never see anymore of dinosaur society than his family farm. As a result, not only is Arlo an exaggerated charicature, the world also feels sparse, with dinosaurs simply a warped reflection of human evolution. Even when events that should be important happen, they aren't given the weight they need to feel important. When the action finally does start a third of the way through the film, the lost Arlo and Spot, his pet human, are subjected to weird, slightly disturbing events that don't have any relevance to the overall story. It isn't until half way through that the story really picks up and then it suddenly transforms into a western. But by this point, we already know everything that's going to happen in the climax because we've been hit over the head with the foreshadowing so hard, we're in danger of a concussion.

Really I can find very little positive to say about this film. At its best, it's not terrible, but it is never funny, interesting or likable. Everything from the plot to the characters are clumsy and sophomoric. There are gaping holes in the logic behind the dinosaurs' evolution and society. However, if you come to Pixar for the animation, there is some beautiful landscape work throughout the movie. Other than that, it's best suited for children. In my mind, it ties with Cars 2 as the worst Pixar film to date.

Room

Jack: When I was small, I only knew small things. But now I'm five, I know everything!

Room, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, tells an incredible story of 5-year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and his mother Joy (Brie Larson) trapped in a room for 7 years by Joy's kidnapper, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers). Jack, who has lived his whole life in this room, doesn't even believe the rest of the world exists while Joy becomes increasingly concerned about their situation and seeks escape now that Jack is old enough to help. But all plans of escape are risky and even if they get out, the world may not be what they remember.

SPOILERS AHEAD

One of the reasons this movie works so well, aside from the much praised acting by Larson and Tremblay, is that it is told from the perspective of Jack, who is too young to fully understand the horror of what is happening. He has an acceptance born of ignorance that prevents the whole thing from sinking into despair and allows the audience to see the parallel between Jack leaving the room with only his mother to the wider world filled with people and possibilities to the journey everyone makes as they grow. We see Jack try to cling to the familiar but unhealthy room he was raised in before finally growing with his new surroundings. What he is left with is a mishmash of the imaginative worldview he was forced to adopt in Room with a slow acceptance of things like trees and grandparents and pancakes.

Joy brings to life the power of the mother-son relationship that is the core of the film. She needs her son as much as he needs her and they both act selfishly toward the other and make great sacrifices in turn. Her trip home is especially difficult as her parents have divorced and moved during her absence and the normalcy she craves is something she can no longer appreciate. Seeing her through her young son's eyes is at times heartbreaking but Jack became the core of her existence during her captivity and her love for him is obvious. The film accepts that there is no easy answer for their recovery and we are left with an ending that is hopeful but not certain.

Room is a truly moving film in part because of how understated and real it feels. It is as intimate as its surroundings and exemplifies not just what it is to survive but what is to live. The subject matter is treated with enough sensitivity to be accessible to a wider audience so if you are interested in films about childhood and parent-child relationships, I highly recommend this one.

A Knight's Tale

Prince Edward: Your men love you. If I knew nothing else about you, that would be enough. But you also tilt when you should withdraw and that is knightly too.

I have to start this with the fact that I'm a little biased toward this movie. I've seen it so many times I can recite the dialogue along with the characters. And I will be completely honest in saying that this is in no way a great film that will change the way you see the world and I love everything about. For those fooled by the title and a character named Chaucer, you should know that this movie is as distantly related to The Canterbury Tales as I am to its author. It makes almost no attempt to be realistic for the time and place it's set. In fact, this medieval England story is as American as apple pie. It follows a peasant born squire who tries to "change his stars" after his master dies by enlisting in jousts as a noble born knight.

The two things that really make A Knight's Tale work is its great cast and its confidence. It tells a simple story that doesn't get distracted and try to come off bigger than it is, but it tells it well, free with jokes but never so self-conscious that it makes its audience feel ridiculous for liking it. And what's not to like? After all, this is the movie that made me fall in love with Heath Ledger as our plucky young hero, Alan Tudyk as his loyal and lovable sidekick and Paul Bettany as the irreverent and no doubt completely inaccurate Chaucer. Along with them are Rufus Sewell as the villain we love to hate, Shannyn Sossamon, James Purefoy, Mark Addy and Laura Fraser. Not only are they talented actors but they have great chemistry thanks to writer/director Brian Helgeland. There is an ease about their conversation that makes it feel they really have been working and traveling together in poverty and hope.

One of the things the film is most famous for is its anachronistic music but anyone who was upset by the music clearly wasn't paying enough attention to the anachronistic plot. The idea that an uneducated, untrained peasant could ever pass himself off as a knight among other knights for any length of time is as laughable as the fact that his noble born love interest, Jocelyn, spends all her time wandering around virile young men unchaperoned and apparently has some say in who she will marry. But the music, like everything else, isn't meant to convey historical realism. It's meant to show you what people felt like when they watched these tournaments and competed for a lady's token. It's about the timelessness of the human experience, the jokes shared with friends, the struggle to reach for more than you're given, the joy of victory and misery of defeat.

So if you need a break from Oscar season or just a feel good movie for a rainy day, check out A Knight's Tale. It's a light hearted adventure that will have you laughing, cheering and believing that you too can change your stars.

The Revenant

Hugh Glass: As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight. You breathe. Keep breathing.

In Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest film, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a highly fictionalized version of frontiersman Hugh Glass as he seeks revenge for being left for dead after a bear attack. On a fur trading expedition, Glass is viciously mauled by a bear, leaving him with a broken leg and numerous flesh wounds. While recovering, Glass witnesses his half-Pawnee son's murder at the hands of Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), one of the men left behind to care for him. Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) leave him for dead in a shallow grave and, after clawing his way out, he sets off on a harrowing journey that pits him against both the wilderness and hostile groups in order the exact vengeance for his son.

This film is intense to say the least and Iñárritu's portrayal of life in the American frontier is unflinching in its brutality. Early on, we see an attack by a Arikara war band that manages to convey both the perilous nature of fur trading and the terrifying reality of guerrilla warfare at the time. The bear attack is disconcertingly realistic and the survival techniques Glass relies on are horrifyingly gruesome. Through it all DiCaprio's performance brings to life both Glass's dire predicament and the true loss he experiences in his family's death. We are frequently reminded of the strength of trees in the face of the wind and the imagery of the forest throughout the film are beautiful reminders of that. The lingering shots and natural lighting help reinforce the overall style and is truly one of the highlights of the film.

But in general, the film is overly sentimental to me. It's easy to sympathize with a man with a murdered wife and son and who appreciates the wisdom of the Pawnee. It's a lot harder the sympathize with the real life Glass, who sought revenge only for himself and the recovery of his rifle. As it is, we see a man settled in his wisdom who gains no new revelations through the experience. He is written as a man modern Americans' want their frontiersmen to be rather than how they really were which is probably closer to Fitzgerald and Bridger. The orchestral parts of the score are haunting but overdone and surprisingly European for the story. The flashbacks of his wife felt emotionally manipulative and could have been accomplished in a much more subtle manner. And all of this lead to the film feeling too long.

The Revenant is unremittingly depressing and gruesome and is not for the faint of heart, but is a wonderful representation of life on the American frontier. It shows the complex relationships amongst the diverse groups of settlers and Native Americans as well as the harsh conditions they faced in the wild. But the heavily revised depiction of Hugh Glass feels like it's pandering to the audience and its heavy-handed sentiment undercuts the strength of DiCaprio's performance. I would recommend this to those interested in the time period or in completing their Oscar scorecard.

Mary & Max

Max: The reason I forgive you is because you are not perfect. You are imperfect. And so am I. All humans are imperfect.

Adam Elliot's Mary & Max is one of my favorite movies although it's difficult to explain why to someone who has not seen it. It's the story of a lonely Australian girl named Mary (voiced by Bethany Whitmore and later Toni Collette) who becomes pen pals with a middle aged New Yorker with Asperger syndrome named Max (Philip Seymour Hoffman). They live in bleak worlds of sepia and black and white. And while Mary is neglected by her parents and picked on at school, Max is misunderstood by everyone but possibly his therapist. But through their letters, they form an unlikely friendship that endures through their happiest and saddest moments and changes their understanding of the world and themselves.

Although this is a claymation movie, it is not meant for children. It's a black comedy that presents characters through their flaws rather than their strengths. But we love them for their flaws because it's their imperfections that make them human. Mary has mud colored eyes with a birthmark on her forehead and she desperately wants to be beautiful. Max's three goals in life are a complete collection of Noblet figurines, a lifetime supply of chocolate and a non-imaginary friend, but but he finds people confusing. Each struggles with their own insecurities and difficulties but each also unconditionally loves the other, warts and all.

The film is not flashy with larger-than-life characters or an outlandish plot. It's simply the stuff of which life is made, but it's made by someone who clearly loves people not in spite of their imperfections, but because of them. At some point in our lives, we have all known a Mary or a Max. Some of us have even been them. But at one point, Max gives Mary a candy heart that reads, "Love yourself first." We can find strength in friendship but in the end, we will still smell like licorice and old books or have mud colored eyes. We need to find not just the value in those around us but also the value in ourselves, even if it means looking at ourselves through someone else's eyes.

Mary & Max is a tribute to everyone who have never quite fit it. It pokes fun at our foibles without malice and shows the worth each person no matter how eccentric. I cannot recommend it highly enough.