Brad Pitt & Marion Cotillard Revisit WWII In Robert Zemeckis’ ALLIED

Now playing at a multiplex near everybody:

ALLIED (Dir. Robert Zemeckis, 2016)

This is Brad Pitt’s third World War II movie (not counting the 2009 short BEYOND ALL BOUNDARIES), but while in Quentin Tarantino’s INGLORIOUS BASTERDS * and David Ayers’ FURY he was a gruff, hard ass Sgt. Rock-style Nazi-killing machine with nicknames such as “The Apache” and “Wardaddy,” here he’s a suave, dapper intelligence officer. But don’t worry, he still kills plenty of Nazis.

The premise in this WWII tale, which is Pitt’s first film with director Robert Zemeckis of BACK TO THE FUTURE and FORREST GUMP fame, is that our hero’s wife may be a German spy.

Marion Cotillard, whose second WWII film this is (Pierre Grimblat’s 2001 drama LISA was her first), plays French Resistance fighter Marianne Beausejour, who meets Pitt’s Max Vatan on a dangerous mission in Morocco to kill a German ambassador. Before long, they fall in love and consummate it in an intense love-making scene set in the back of a car in the middle of a sandstorm.

That’s one of the movie’s most memorable moments as it’s heated and convincing enough to make Angelina Jolie feel like her real-life split from Pitt is beyond justified, but unfortunately the film lacks enough of such stunning scenes to make it ultimately worthwhile.

After Max and Marianne get married and have a daughter while living in London and dream about having a house together across the pond in Medicine Hat in Alberta, Canada, Max is told by a SOE (Special Operations Executive) Officer portrayed by Simon McBurney (who really ought to play Roman Polanski someday) that there’s strong evidence that Marianne is a spy. If she’s found guilty, Max will be forced to kill her or be executed himself for not following orders.

So Max does what he can to prove her innocence including traveling to a veterans hospital to question an acquaintance named Guy Sangster (an almost unrecognizable Matthew Goode) about whether his wife is who she says she is, and a French prison to interrogate a one-armed drunk to corroborate the same. The latter is another effective sequence with genuine suspense and a thrilling shoot-out, but, again, there’s not enough of this action to really make this movie a must.

One of the film’s major problems is that it looks so phony. From Pitt and Cotillard’s heavy, unnatural looking make-up to obvious use of green screen to the soundstage sets (especially in the rooftop scenes), the whole thing never not comes across like a glossy Hollywood production.

I’m sure that some of these aesthetics are intentional in its attempt to make an old fashioned CASABLANCA-type romance involving espionage and intrigue, but I was distracted by how Pitt looked like BENJAMIN BUTTON when he reached his pretty boy stage, and how artificial the surroundings appeared.

The conclusion is far from satisfying in its predictability and there are some character threads that don’t add up to much like that of Max’s lesbian sister, played by Lizzy Caplan. Jared Harris is used more successfully as Max’s sympathetic commander, but it’s a part Harris could play in his sleep (Harris’ role in CERTAIN WOMEN is certainly a much more challenging one).

Still, ALLIED is passable entertainment, and many folks will be swept up in its charms, as limited as they may be. It stars two appealing movie stars, who do display considerable chemistry, and it moves along at a brisk pace. If only its screenplay, by Steven Knight, was more fleshed out and there was more authentic grit in its visuals.

As is, it’s a fairly forgettable affair that I doubt will have much traction this season.

* Will Fonvielle of the fine blog Filmvielle pointed out that August Diehl, who appeared in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, also makes an appearance in this film. I consider that a callback.

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LOVING: A Heart-Rending, Sadly Timely History Lesson

Starts today at an indie art house near me:

LOVING (Dir. Jeff Nichols, 2016)

One of the best films featured at the 2011 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival was Nancy Buirski’s THE LOVING STORY, which laid out in fascinating detail how a Virginia couple’s biracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court case that was successful in overturning the law banning interracial marriage in 1967.

I’m not usually a fan of films that adapt documentaries into dramas – I mean, who needs to see LORDS OF DOGTOWN, or the 2009 HBO telefilm GREY GARDENS when the docs DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYZ and the original 1975 Maysles brothers’ film of the same name cover their subjects’ stories so definitively?

But, Nichols’ adaptation, which also draws upon Phyl Newbeck’s 2005 book “Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers,” is an excellent companion piece to Buirski’s * essential doc as it delivers top notch performances, an immersive tone, and a well paced narrative that’s compelling even when you know exactly what’s going to happen.

Joel Edgerton (THE GREAT GATSBY, THE GIFT) and Ruth Negga (WORLD WAR Z, the AMC TV series Preacher) portray Richard and Mildred Loving, who we meet as a young couple living in a working-class community in rural Virginia that we see doting on each other as they attend drag races, and parties, while planning to build their dream house in the first idyllic fifteen minutes of this film that’s only mildly marred by some forced laughing.

The couple, who have a baby on the way, drive to Washington D.C. to get married with Mildred’s father (Christopher Mann) coming along as a witness to the event, but shortly afterward back at home they are woken up in the middle of the night by a police raid that lands both of them in jail.

After Richard is bailed out he tries to bail out his wife, but is told by the ultra evil, and obviously ultra racist sheriff who arrested them that told they have to divorce or they will be forced to leave the state. Richard and Mildred sadly move to D.C., leaving behind their loved ones, but they illegally return months later in order to have the baby delivered by Richard’s midwife mother (Sharon Blackwood) and are promptly arrested again.

Their lawyer Frank Beazley (Bill Camp) comes to the couple’s aid, telling the judge (another evil racist played by David Jensen) that he mistakenly told them they could return for their baby’s birth, which the judge accepts. Afterwards, Beazley tells them that this is the last time he can help; the next time they violate the terms of their sentence could result in prison time.

In the years that follow, the Lovings raise three children in their row house apartment in DC, until Mildred is inspired to write then Attorney General Robert Kennedy about their predicament (“Get yourself some civil rights!” exclaims their landlord Laura played by Andrene Ward-Hammond).

Before long, Mildred gets a call from American Civil Liberties lawyer Bernard Cohen (Nick Kroll), who shocks her when he says that the ACLU will handle their case free of charge. Kroll, in a rare dramatic role for the comedian, is paired with Jon Bass as Phil Hirschkop, a more experienced civil rights layer, and they both get a bit giddy with the idea that the case could alter the Constitution of the United States.

LOVING is a conventional, straight forward drama that has a few misguided melodramatic moments, but nothing that dims its sincere, and heart wrenching power.

Both Edgerton and Negga have been quietly putting in strong work over the years, but their sharp, lived-in portrayals here deserve a lot of attention, and awards season action. Especially Negga, who can convey so much with the smallest of expressions. Her Mildred is convincingly and touchingly the brain, and the heart of the couple, contrasted with Edgerton’s Richard, who’s a bit thickheaded but displays the gruff strength and conviction to keep his family together.

They are surrounded by a fine ensemble, which includes a cameo by Nichols regular Michael Shannon as Life Magazine photographer Grey Villet. Another Nichols veteran, David Wingo, contributes the film’s sometimes a bit too eerie, but never too cloying score.

Nichols’ film, which he scripted, does contain many of the formula tropes of Oscar-baiting biopics including the standard text at the end to bring the audience up to date, and the obligatory photo of the real couple that appears before the credits, but these elements don’t feel as clichéd here as they do elsewhere. Perhaps because they are serving a much more deserving dramatization of history than what we’ve come to expect this time of year.

In the age of Trump (man, I hated typing that), a story about fighting racism is as timely as can be, but this film teaches a lesson that would be just as important for people to learn and appreciate even if our country had elected the more qualified candidate.

As the saying goes, “those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” Right now, when it sure looks like we are doomed, it’s more crucial than ever that we look back at the times that we as the people of this great, but greatly flawed country actually got something right.

* Buirski is also one of the producers of LOVING.

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The Touching Artful Aura Of Barry Jenkins' MOONLIGHT

Now playing at both multiplexes and indie art houses near me:

MOONLIGHT (Dir. Barry Jenkins, 2016)

If you’ve been following film this year, you may have heard some of the buzz surrounding Barry Jenkins’ second film MOONLIGHT, his follow-up to his 2008 debut MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY (currently streaming on Netflix and well worth a watch).

The acclaim is deserved for Jenkins’ coming-of-age tale told in three parts is a wonderful, touching, and very real feeling work of indie art.

Taking its inspiration from the short conceptual play “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue” by Tarell Alvin McCraney, MOONLIGHT is the Miami -set story of a young African American male named Chiron who is played by three different actors representing different ages of the character.

In the first chapter, entitled “Little,” Alex Hibbert embodies the 9-year old Chiron, nicknamed Little, who find a father figure in Juan, a crack dealer sharply played by Mahershala Ali (House of Cards, Luke Cage), that is, until he realizes that his abusive mother (Naomi Harris, best known as the latest incarnation of Moneypenny in the James Bond series) buys her drugs from Juan. We also introduced to young Chiron’s best friend Kevin (Jaden Piner), whose presence we’ll understand better later.

The second segment, simply named “Chiron,” features our protagonist as a teenager played by Ashton Sanders, as he maneuvers through high school bullying and an even rougher home-life as his mother has worsened into crack cocaine addiction. Things get strained between Chiron and Kevin (now played by Jharrel Jerome) when Kevin gets caught up in a hazing ritual with a bully who’s been tormenting Chiron, and Kevin is pressured into fighting his friend.

The concluding chapter, “Black” (another nickname), catches up with Chiron in his 20s portrayed by Trevante Rhodes. Chiron has grown up to be a drug dealer living outside of Atlanta, but he journeys back to Miami when he gets a call from Kevin, now played by André Holland. Chiron shows up at the restaurant that Kevin works at and his old friend is surprised by his new buff appearance.

That’s as far as I’ll go as the broad strokes of my plot description won’t do justice to the sheer beauty of how Chiron’s story unfolds. MOONLIGHT may be the most convincing love story on the big screen this year. It’s also a supreme character study which focuses on gender identity, and the difficulties in achieving intimacy in a cold, brutal world.

“I’m me, man - ain’t trying to be nothing else,” Rhodes’ Chiron tells Holland’s Kevin, who responds “Oh, okay - so you hard now?” Chiron answers “No, I ain’t say that.” To that Kevin says “Well, then what?”

In that exchange lies the aching crux of the film’s exploration of black gay masculinity. Chiron grows up poor, fatherless, and conflicted about his sexuality, but there may be some light before he reaches the end of the tunnel. Chiron can see and feel it when he and Kevin re-visit the same beach where they kissed as teens and the sand and water are illuminated by, you know, the shining stuff that the film is named after.

Jenkins’ lovely, honest work here results in one of the year’s finest and most emotionally impactful films. It deserves a ton of awards season action for sure, but what it most deserves is bigger audiences. It’s been gaining traction on the indie circuit (it just opened at a handful of theaters in my area), but it’s still being overshadowed by the scores of better promoted, studio-produced heavy hitters at the multiplexes.

So I urge lovers of small, yet largely affecting films to seek out MOONLIGHT. Its touching artful aura is well worth basking in.

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