Romance in the City

Making a booking at the Moonlight Cinema in Sydney’s Centennial Park is probably the most romantic thing I have done in a little while (I will let you judge if that is a good or bad thing). The first movie we planned to see eventually washed out (Elizabeth 2), so I decided upon the Darjeeling Limited – hoping that the wet Sydney summer would break for one February evening.The Darjeeling Limited reminded me so much of the India I experienced last summer. The director, Wes Craven, managed to communicate on the screen so many of the rich sights, sounds and smells (strangely enough) that I had both cursed and loved on the sub-continent (you have to experience India to understand what I mean).

The story is simple enough. Three brothers take a train trip across India after the death of their father. Each are as strange as the other: Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson) is the oldest brother, who is actually more like a mother to Peter (Adrian Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman). Francis organised the trip and will do whatever it takes to ensure that everything goes to plan. This provides many of the laughs for the film, as Peter and Jack are no longer little brothers.  The movie is rich with symbolism, and having not watched many Wes Anderson movies in the past, I failed to understand some parts such as the Bill Murray scene at the beginning.

This isn’t meant to be a movie review, because I enjoyed spending the night with OP without having to worry about all the things which usually occupy my mind.  In other words, the timing, the setting and the weather was such that I could have watched any movie that night and enjoyed myself.

Just because its French…

MOVIE REVIEW: THE AGE OF MAN (AGE D’HOMME…MAINTENANT OU JAMAIS)

In The Age of Man (curiously, the “now or never” bit is not translated in the Australian title), Romain Duris plays Samuel, a man, who, in what appears to be the last days of his youth, is torn between the responsibility-less life of singledom and committing to his long-term girlfriend, the captivatingly gorgeous, Chloe, played by Aissa Maiga.

That pretty much sums up the whole movie and plot.

At its heart, the movie is about Samuel’s identity crisis – is he good enough to be a husband and father. Past generations of men went to war and created new arts, Samuel, on the other hand, is a film director (we don’t know if he is any good or not) who is more than happy being the assistant to Chloe (who I think is a photographer, although its not all that clear). His friends are all moving to new stages in their lives, getting married and having babies, although Samuel’s interactions with them don’t really shed any light on his current crisis.

It is difficult to describe what else happens in the movie because there is no real plot. Samuel inspects an apartment (although it appears that he is living in a perfectly good one) and briefly flirts with another prospective tenant played by Maria Jurado (?). However, apart from running into her again later in the movie, nothing really come of it all – no drama, no insight into any of the characters. Similarly, he takes his bicycle to get repaired and meets a colleague who has a new film idea, however, nothing at all follows from these events.

There is a particularly funny, and unsexy, love scene and a few other laugh-out-loud moments in the movie. However, much of the humour missed the mark for me (including the fart jokes). Montages interrupt the movie: Samuel fighting in no man’s land, Samuel’s conversations with an imaginery Leonardi Da Vinci and Samuel the caveman. However, each seem out of place, ridiculous and completely unfunny. Although the scenes with Leonardo give some insight into Samuel’s character, they are bizarre to the point of distraction.

The movie ends sweetly but predictably. Most critically, the ending bears almost no relationship to the 90 or so minutes that preceeded it. The words, unfortunately, which should end the title to this review are “doesn’t mean that its good”.

One Man’s Rating (out of 5):

Trading on Clooney’s cachet

MOVIE REVIEW: MICHAEL CLAYTON

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is not your run-of-the-mill lawyer. Working in one of New York’s top firms, Clayton’s job is to “clean up” the mess of other lawyers/clients. What sets him apart are his contacts – in the government, in the police force and in other law firms around the country. He is definitely a flawed character – a seemingly indifferent father and addicted gambler. He is not what you would call the “noble lawyer”.

The film’s beginning sets a suspenseful tone which carries the whole 2 hours, however, after the first act, the plot becomes fairly predictable. This is not a wholly terrible thing, as the direction (Terry Gilroy) keeps you guessing when the next plot turn will happen, not if it will happen. And this is probably the greatest weakness of the film. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what will happen, and how the protagonist will respond.

After making a house call on a client who was just involved in a hit and run, Clayton takes a drive to where the accident happened.  What occurs next doesn’t really make much sense until you get to the end of the movie – Clayton steps out of his flash Mercedes to take a breather with a harras of horses.  What happens next will be the only “jump in your seat” surprise of the film.  What follows is the recent history leading up to that point, which includes corporate conspiracies, mentally unstable lawyers and a twisted love story.

In terms of being a critique of the corporate world or class-action litigation, the film fails on both counts – first for being completely over the top (I cannot imagine any large corporation or general counsel doing what they do in this film), and because there was no need for the evil-doers to pursue such a villainous course to achieve their aims. From the side of the “good guys”, Clayton does not actually make any moral decisions during the film – his pursuit of the bad guys only starts once other people have started connecting the dots for him, and culminates only after things get personal. By the end of the film, I left with the feeling that Clayton’s character ends how it began, without any nobility gained.

Tilda Swinston, playing in-house lawyer Karen Chowder, for my mind provided the best performance. Although Chowder is the villain in this corporate drama, in Swinston’s skilful hands, she comes across as the all-too-loyal servant who is in over her head. (She reminded me of so many managers/supervisors I have had who display very little scruples when it comes to saving their own skin.) It is Chowder and not Clayton who faces the moral dilemmas – and I am not too sure that, if faced with a similar predicament, that Clayton would have chosen the better path.

Michael Clayton has received rave reviews both here in Australia and around the world – however, I am convinced that much of this is due to Clooney’s cachet. By the end, the bad guys were just too malevolent to be any real critique on today’s corporate world, and I am not convinced that the good guys are really all that good.

One Man’s Rating (out of 5):