“The Fifth Estate” (2013):

You can’t expose the world’s secrets without exposing your own.

That’s the tagline for the new film The Fifth Estate. Directed by Bill Condon, this is the story of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks — especially Assange, up close and personal, warts and all.

Expectations for the film were high, especially with star Benedict Cumberbatch as Assange, and packaged in a fast-paced global thriller that traces the relationship between Assange and his early collaborator, Daniel Berg (Daniel Brühl).

But the film crashed and burned. It opened in a whopping 1769 theaters across the USA a few days ago, but earned only $1.7 million over the weeked — a truly awful number. This was the worst box office debut for any film opening in at least 1500 theaters this year. What went wrong?

Film blogger JustMeMike and I sat down to try to figure it out.

JMM: I was one of just two people who saw this movie at the 10:45 AM showing today. How many people were in attendance at the screening you attended?

Didion: There were four of us at the 1:40 showing, but hey —- it’s mid-afternoon on a Monday … I’m not sure the weak audience numbers necessarily reflect anything. And the two guys next to me loved the film.

I’m still processing, to be honest. JMM, do you think this film was written for a broad audience, or for people with particular views of WikiLeaks?

JMM: Great question. The film looked like it was marketed as a thriller. Proponents of transparency in government and media would be the standard bearers. But it played out much differently. I failed to detect any thrills, and I failed to learn anything about the process. What I came away with was that WikiLeaks was a good idea, but that Assange himself turned it into being more about himself, than what he was trying to accomplish.

Which leads to the question (for which I have no answer) was the film fair to Assange?

Didion: It’s hard for me to answer that because I keep asking, would this film look any different if Assange had made it? Isn’t it very much to his advantage to be at its center, the way he is here? Isn’t it to his advantage to be portrayed as a complicated figure? Perhaps Assange would have portrayed himself as more heroic than he appears here, but I think he’s enough of a publicity savant to know that an ambivalent character is more interesting than a purely heroic one. (The one thing about the film that’d be different is the absence of the Daniel character, as the two men have had a devastating fallout.)

So in that regard, the film is more than fair; it lets Assange be the main character. Moreover, it wants us to believe that WikiLeaks truly is a fifth estate, a new guerrilla means of exposing the truth behind our institutions — also very much Assange’s message.

JMM: Well that certainly fits. A guerrilla means of bringing the truth out into the light. However it is also true that his methodology could be called something like Egotistical Anarchy. Or we might call him an Informational Insurgent. Maybe that’s the problem with the film — people would prefer to have learned more about the process and less about the guy behind the curtain.

This makes it look as if there’s a female character in this film, but don’t be fooled. You won’t remember her name.

Which leads me to another point. I really didn’t care for the first hour — at least once the opening montage concluded, we had no place to go but down. Did you see the film as two distinct and separate halves?

Didion: Hm. I’m not sure I can answer that. You’re right that it presents a gradually more problematic view of Assange in the second half. But I thought the biggest drama in the film — the leadup to the dump of the 90,000 documents on the websites of the Guardian, the NY Times, Der Spiegel, and other publications — was nicely handled. That is, those scenes portrayed nicely all the competing interests, motives, and worries, including by two US State Department heads (Laura Linney and Stanley Tucci). It was good, I thought, because it forced everyone in the theater to consider all sides of the question about this form of exposure — not only the question of whether the dump of documents might lead to blood being spilled, but also whether it’s more honest to dump documents unredacted. It was fascinating. You’ll have to tell me your opinion of this too, JMM.

But in addition, there’s another question I find important: does this film ultimately send the message that WikiLeaks would have been a fine and dandy new mode of communication but for its egomaniacal leader?

JMM: Exactly.

Assange stressed again and again that he was primarily concerned with protecting the whistleblowers, the so-called sources. Anonymity was crucial, otherwise no one would leak anything to them. And that was an honest and accurate appraisal of the process. But as you said, he was totally dishonest about everything else. Even Daniel was deceived.

So the question of his character is something that none of us, not even Josh Singer the writer, or Bill Condon, the director, can answer.

The Guardian’s cocky, elitist editors (Dan Stevens and Peter Capaldi) who only realize late how important WikiLeaks is

Actually, I couldn’t believe that Assange was so gung-ho to publish the docs without any redacting. Did that send Assange’s credibility out the window for you?

Didion: Honestly, I’m still on the fence about how I feel about the film being a referendum on Assange’s character, especially as it’s been told by a former associate. On the fence, because I’m more interested in the establishment of WikiLeaks as an institution with the potential to achieve a greater degree of transparency than our profit-driven fourth estate has managed recently. All the attention to Assange seems like a red herring; shouldn’t we be asking harder questions about the institution rather than its colorful central figure?

But maybe that’s the problem — it’s hard for me to think of this simply as a film with its own internal logic, rather than as a comment on real-life institutions and people.

I must say that the way the film portrays Assange’s growing sense of urgency and paranoia — his eagerness to publish the documents so hastily — was badly handled. The film played it as a sign of his recklessness; but is it so wrong to argue that censoring any part of the docs, even a person’s name or the location of a battle, might limit the documents’ usefulness? In other words, even though the film played it as part of Assange’s messianism, I found his point worthy of a conversation.

JMM: Sure. It is an interesting question. That could have been the whole point of the film. But I’ll ask you about the usefulness. Who would benefit from the knowledge that Agency X, in Country Z, did this or that? It would all be after the fact of the events, and could precipitate following events. I’m saying that it is a slippery slope — and the real life stuff that followed now has Assange living sequestered in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. So who benefited? — the usefulness can’t really be quantified.

On the other hand, I really do like that you were able to leap from the cinema that we saw and take that information and apply it to the real world. I’m still more grounded to the film itself than the worldly aftermath.

Didion: that’s what makes you such a good reviewer! that’s what we’re supposed to do!

It occurs to me that my refusal to see this merely as a thriller, but also as a film with real-life implications, springs from some essential disappointments. I don’t mean to suggest the film is bad; far from it. But as you can see, I’m disappointed that it was so much about Assange, even though I recognize what a compelling character he is.

On that note, I must say that Cumberbatch did a fabulous job — I had to google the real Assange afterward to remind myself what he actually looked like. Cumberbatch not only got the charm and the deceiving back stories right; he also got Assange’s methodical manner of speaking, his tics…those beady eyes, darting around a room, over–thinking everything. It was a terrific performance. What did you think of the acting overall?

JMM: Sorry Didion, I’m not much of a Cumberbatch fan at all. He wore wigs and false teeth to look the part, and he just doesn’t impress me. Which is not to say he wasn’t good in the role. Personally, I enjoyed Brühl more. Maybe it was the deceptiveness by Assange that kept me from either liking him, or being partial to him. Bruhl, on the other hand, was a far more open character, one that was infinitely more accessible. I liked Linney and Tucci better. But I just couldn’t get my arms around Cumberbatch.

Didion: I wonder — was it the acting or the character?

I liked Brühl too (and had only seen him in The Fall, the Gillian Anderson series, before now), but for the most part, he just didn’t do a lot with the character except function as a nice window through which to see Assange.

Linney and Tucci were great! Taking on smaller roles like these must be such a treat for seasoned actors like them. I swear I’d pay to watch Stanley Tucci read the phone book.

We probably can’t answer the question of why the film hasn’t succeeded at the box office, but I’m curious: do you think the film should have done well? is it worth the big budget, the big advertising campaign?

JMM: Another great question, Didion. I’m thinking that the film is disappointing in so many ways. I’m also thinking that Assange is not particularly important at the moment, even though Wikileaks still exists. I’m also thinking that Dreamworks made a mistake with Cumberbatch. I just don’t see him selling tickets. Granted, Redford and Hoffman are now in their 70s, but when you think of All The President’s Men — a great film about revealing the truth — you can say that that film was a great film with great stars who sold tickets on their names.

We can’t say that about the actors here in The Fifth Estate can we?

The story had all the relevance and importance — yet — no one wants to see it.

Didion: And All the President’s Men was such an uncomplicated story in contrast, wasn’t it? Crusading journalists uncovering increasingly fraught information that leads them farther up the chain of command. Whereas it’s hard for anyone but the most zealous to find WikiLeaks to be straightforwardly heroic. These two films would made fascinating counterpoints in a college class about the public’s views about the media, actually!

Cumberbatch might not be your cup of tea, but you frame the problem exactly: focusing the story on Assange is going to turn people away from the film. Tell me, purely on the subject of the film as a thriller, you’ve mentioned that you were disappointed. Do you think this is the fault of the storytelling, the filming, or something more pervasive about the film?

JMM: As I said earlier — the first half of the film was kind of tedious. Guys at keyboards, typing furiously isn’t scintillating film making. Then factor in the fact that what we saw on their screens wasn’t the least bit accessible to a standard viewer. So even if we give them the first hour to establish the characters and the narrative — it left me cold. It gains some traction in the second half, but by then the two main characters were going in opposite directions.

Condon handled his cameras quite well, and Singer did manage to make the film have some excellent pace — but only in the second half.

Didion: The fact that all of us spend all our time in front of screens these days is going to make modern thrillers incredibly boring, isn’t it? I don’t feel as negatively about the online screen time the characters engaged in; I actually thought about whether there’s a way to make that stuff riveting for future audiences. (Actually, the series Sherlock did some interesting work with graphics onscreen representing texting.) But it’s not the same as Robert Redford walking into creepy parking garages, or Dustin Hoffman on the phone and frantically taking notes on his interviews, is it?

In the end I think Hollywood hasn’t quite figured out how to make real–time computer/internet exchange exciting. And in the end, isn’t that really what films like The Social Network and The Fifth Estate are all about? and they’re a sign of things to come.

JMM: Smart phones, tablets, and the like get more and more intricate and evolve every month. But filmmaking? Not so much. At least not in this one.

Didion: Exactly! I wonder if they’ll find a more elaborate kind of personal viewing experience — high tech 3D glasses that interact with the film’s story, for example — to enhance our sense of what’s going on onscreen? A sort of Google Glass experience for the theater.

Meanwhile, back here in October 2013, I have to pronounce myself slightly disappointed overall. If pressed, I’d give the film something like 3 stars out of 5 — a perfectly watchable thriller, but one that doesn’t do anything very interesting or new. That’s ultimately what gets me about this film. On the one hand, it does a nice job of convincing me that WikiLeaks is a thoroughly new institution worthy of a moniker like The Fifth Estate. On the other hand, it’s an old-fashioned story about a follower who grows disillusioned with his cult of personality leader. Neither the story nor the filmmaking are innovative or particularly thought-provoking, even as the film raises some good questions about WikiLeaks’ central aims and motives.

JMM: Nice summary Didion. I’ll agree to a 3.0 out of five as well. There’s nothing wrong with old stories if told well, And we don’t need a whole lot of innovative technical wizardy if told well.

What was it that Berg’s girlfriend Anke called Assange — an asshole? Well, you can make a good story about one of those too.

Didion: Okay, one final question for you, JMM. At the very end of the film — and I promise, this doesn’t spoil anything — Cumberbatch appears neatly coiffed, sitting in a chair, as if for a televised interview. He’s answering questions, including about “the WikiLeaks movie,” and he frankly dismisses the project. In other words, the film allows Assange to have the last word. What did you think of that filmmaking choice?

JMM: You mean the coda at the end when Assange disavows the film? I have two thoughts on that — it seemed tacked on as an after thought. At that point — or should I say before that — the film was over. It wasn’t necessary.

Didion: Honestly, I kind of liked it. It seemed so … oddly eager to have Assange weigh in, even if he disavowed it.

JMM: Would you have liked it better if they used the real Assange who was interviewed by Stephen Colbert?

Didion: No, I liked it that Cumberbatch remained our version of Assange… and he was just as ambivalent a character in those scenes as he’d been earlier in the film. I think I found it so weird because on some level Condon wanted to show Assange’s opposition to the film as a film. I thought that brief scene really did add something oddly self–conscious about this being a film.

JMM: Yes, in that context, as a directorial choice by Bill Condon, it did add a dimension. But it didn’t increase my appreciation on the overall film.

Didion: So, we weren’t entranced … and the film left us with some fairly damning evidence about Assange’s character. But as always, talking with you about the film — particularly so soon after seeing it — has been both highly enjoyable and useful in debriefing about its qualities. Thanks, JMM, as always for the pleasure of a happy-hour movie chat!

JMM: I’m happy to have the opportunity to discuss film with you at any time. And it was a particular pleasure this time as neither of us was gushing with praise. Until next time…

Can dystopia end happily? A conversation about “Elysium” (2013)

In the future according to Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, LA looks like the favelas outside Rio — a vast, dusty, treeless series of shantytowns covering those coastal hills as far as the eye can see. It’s overwhelmingly Latino — everyone speaks Spanish, or Spanglish — and we learn that the rest of Earth is similarly dark-skinned and downtrodden. A title card tells us that the world is diseased, overpopulated, and broken, and that the wealthiest have decamped from Earth altogether for a kind of space station called Elysium that looks like Bel Air on steroids, where they sip champagne, swim in glamorous pools, and speak French.

It’s a great premise, fully in keeping with the brilliant work Blomkamp did with his earlier District 9 (2009) — a believable dystopia that reflects the worst tendencies of today’s world, the ways that the wealthy can hoard the best resources for themselves. In a brief flashback, a little boy called Max (who grows up to be Matt Damon) gets taught to read by a little girl called Frey (who grows up to be Alice Braga) as they pour over a book describing the wonders of Elysium. He gazes up at her with love, and promises to take her there someday.

We know he will. But how? and what will the consequences be? By the time we find the adult Max, he’s an ex-con on parole working in a factory making the robo-cops that terrorize the populace, and he and Frey have lost touch.

Add to this story a sharp-edged, power-hungry Elysium defense chief named Delacourt (Jodie Foster) with a sort of South African accent; Delacourt’s designated mercenary named Kruger, who solves problems for her with murderous glee (an unrecognizable Sharlto Copley, who played the hapless lead in District 9); and a crime kingpin on Earth named Spider (Wagner Moura), who sends shuttles full of illegal immigrants up to Elysium on the off-chance they’ll make it past Delacourt’s defenses. Those who don’t make it … well, what do the inhabitants of Elysium care?

Don’t worry: we’ll warn you in advance about spoilers.

Film blogger JustMeMike and I sat down to have an extended conversation about this film as we have many times — most recently about The Great Gatsby. So, JMM, let me start by asking: were you as intrigued as I was by the film’s premise?

JustMeMike: I hadn’t seen District 9, so I may not have the same entry point as many did. But who could resist Matt Damon as a Mad Max type wearing an exo-skeleton suit rather than leather. I was also eager to see Foster as a villain. I loved Moura from his two Brazilian cop movies that I’d seen. But those are just the actors.

As for the premise, sure, with a dystopian/utopian combo it seemed like a can’t miss. And with Blomkamp at the helm of a 100 million dollar production, it seemed that he has been anointed as the new boy-wonder of the film world. So yes, I was eager to see it.  Show me a tasty premise and A-list actors? Where do I sign up?

Didion: I loved loved loved District 9. Really: a stunner. It might have made me a bit overly optimistic for Elysium. But I have to say, the opening scenes of this film, with those miserable favelas and all the Spanish (Matt Damon does some good language work here) — well, I can’t remember a more believable dystopia, nor a summer blockbuster with so much Spanish being spoken. I was all in for the film’s setup.

JMM: We can agree, that when you add the imagery to the intellectual side of the premise — then you have created an immediate hook for the viewers with or without the language medley of English and Spanish.

Which leads to a question — why the Francais up on Elysium – or was that just for that particular cocktail party?

Didion:  I’m not sure we’re supposed to know, but I loved the contrast between the gritty, almost apocalyptic world of LA and the jolting scene of Jodie Foster, with her chiseled calves and perfect hair, schmoozing en francais with the hoi polloi. It was so jolting, in fact, that I wondered how much Blomkamp wanted his viewers to get angry about the impossible social divides that exist in our own world. District 9 was ultimately a story about race; perhaps Elysium is his commentary on class?

JMM: Of course it was. And that feeling is what has occurred to so many who have seen the film. I mean that he started with a premise of class issues (and the obvious divide created by money) — separated the two between Earth and Elysium, then switched away from that and made the film into an action/adventure yarn. I still enjoyed myself — but I wanted more thoughtful concepts than explosions.

Didion: I’m with you there. I found myself oddly ambivalent at the end of the film — feeling as if some other director had arrived mid-stream and transformed the film into something more safe by distracting us with explosions and bad bad guys, away from the class issues.

I’ll say this: of the summer blockbusters I’ve seen, this seems like the most original and substantial — that is, particularly compared to the superheroes and sequels — but I’m ultimately disappointed by Blomkamp’s ultimate privileging of action over ideas. Tell me, JMM, would you ultimately recommend this film — and why?

JMM: Sure I will and am recommending the film. Despite the flaws it is still a first class entertainment. Why? The execution of the technical side of the film is just perfect. I’ll say nothing bad about what we see. It is only when we start to think about it – and this is in the latter parts of the film, that we detect issues.

The hardware, the robot-cops, the expansive factory setting – all of the was done superbly. So, I think it was a visual treat. Unfortunately, the visuals have to get the highest marks, which means other areas, key areas, like acting and writing suffer in comparison. Since we’ve already mentioned the conceptual change from a theme-based story to an action film, let’s talk actors. Tell me about Foster as Delacourt.

Didion: I’m usually of the opinion that the more Jodie Foster, the better. She’s certainly got the look of the icy, powerful bureaucrat down; think of her as the fixer in Inside Man (2006). She slinks through this film as the cat-like reason why Elysium’s days are numbered — the rot at the heart of the apple. When she speaks in her effortless French in those early scenes, you believe every single bit of her ruthlessness.

But maybe it was her (weak) South African accent, or a big jump in the narrative in the second act, or the fact that we’ve seen this character before — I found her character to be too stereotypical and .. well, kind of boring. How about you?

JMM: Bingo! Hard to believe that Foster disappoints but she does. But at least half of that can be laid at the feet of Blomkamp. He wrote a one dimensional character and Foster gave him just that.

If I may make a more pointed and cynical observation. I think Foster was cast to sell tickets. As narrow as the role was, anyone could have played Delacourt. In fact I was somewhat surprised by the large number of women who attended the screening I did.  Did you have a similar audience?

Didion: Now I’m laughing because I realize my complaint is just like in the old joke that I repeat all the time, in which two little old ladies go out for lunch and one says, “This food is terrible!” and the other says, “And there’s so little of it!” I wanted a different Jodie, and I wanted more of her.

But if you don’t mind, I’d also like to issue a larger complaint: the gender stuff in Elysium is bad and boring, too. We have two women: a perfect mother/angel in Frey, and the evil ice queen in Delacourt. The men are similarly stereotyped: Max is our hunky, tattooed superhero (with a nicely gratuitous shirtless scene early on) who wants to just live up to his promises; he hasn’t got much else to offer. And then there’s the ill-fated best buddy (Diego Luna); the dark-skinned crime boss (Moura), whose main original characteristic is his cane; the super-baddy (Copley), and the evil capitalist (William Fichtner). Isn’t the real problem that there’s not an interesting character in the bunch?

JMM:  Actually there are three women that are important. The third is Frey’s sick daughter. I think once Max gets a look at her, the whole story changes.

Spider was a surprise for me. Moura, in his cop films, is a strong character, a tough guy that any guy would admire; but here he plays a geek crime lord. They could have dispensed with the cane and shambling gait entirely. But Copley as Kruger steals the film away from Damon.

Damon was driven — not so much by his idealism, but more practically to stay alive. Once he makes a deal with Spider to stay alive, Delacourt brings Kruger into the picture — the type of guy we’ve not seen the likes of before.

Did you like Kruger as a monstrous force?

Didion: Now that I think about it, you’re exactly right: Kruger steals the picture, with his mountain-man cloak and mondo-weapons and can’t-die resurrections. I’m not saying he’s got much three-dimensionality, but I could have spent another few hours creeped out by his capacity for violence.

I’ll say one more thing to agree with a point you made above: the look of the film, most of which takes place in this hell-Earth, is utterly believable — the visuals of Max’s job at the factory, getting harassed by the robo-cops — Blomkamp is a genius at creating and capturing a full world.

But let me return to your last note about Matt Damon. Do you think he lets the film get stolen out from under him, or was it a problem with the writing?

JMM: Great question. It wasn’t Damon as Max. I think once Blomkamp brought Max and Frey’s daughter together, Max’s direction was set in stone. Max was an everyman, likeable because we all could identify with him. Hard working at his dull/dangerous job. Plus his demeanor to the cops — he was just below the rage phase with the street cops and his parole officer — but he kept himself in check as best he could.

But it didn’t quite work for Max. Enter Kruger with his helo, his goons, his weapons, and his Afrikaner accent. And his near deadly efficiency. We feared him and were attracted to his strengths, yet we abhorred the thought of this guy getting his mitts on Frey. So I think it was no surprise that he stole the film away from Damon’s Max.

Didion: Sigh. It’s too bad, because I have a theory that no one can do complex, ambivalent characters better than Matt Damon (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Bourne, etc). The problem with this one was that his character was set: even if he descended to do something illegal, it was because he was trying to do the right thing in the end.

Maybe now is the time to issue a ***SPOILER ALERT***. Because I have some questions about the ultimate direction of the story.

JMM, my biggest disappointment came at about the ⅔ mark, when two disappointing things happen: Delacourt dies, and the whole story narrows down to become a question about whether everyone ought to have access to Elysium’s fantastic medical machines, which cure everything. That is, whereas the first part of the film heightens your awareness of a whole universe of class problems — endemic poverty, miserable jobs, tyrannical police, a failed health care system — the second half collapses them into the fantasy that if everyone had access to great health care, all problems would be solved.

JMM: Well I’m not sure all problems would be solved. The idea of making everyone a citizen (for health care or other reasons) was admirable, but I thought wouldn’t it be much easier to bring the med machines down to earth rather than bring the multitudes up to Elysium. But that was the inevitable happy ending — post Max and post Delacourt.

Which leads to some questions I can ask as we’ve posted the spoiler alert.

You know that Blomkamp’s Elysium was a utopia with Earth a dystopia, so how was it that Spider not only had the means of transporting to Elysium, how was it that Spider had enough power to run his hardware? Seems like Elysium’s eye in the sky would have noticed this on the power grid. How did Spider’s transport which was called an Unidentified Shuttle get through Elysium’s sky-net defenses? Especially after we saw other ships get shot down.

Did any of this trouble you?

Didion: Will it solve anything to permit everyone the chance to come to Elysium? Or is that access only going to allow people medical care, so they can live longer in that hell? Will inhabitants of Earth still pay exorbitant prices for transport? Will Elysium simply find a new way to ban that traffic? The ending is just a mess of unanswered questions.

I was left with an overriding sense that Blomkamp had created a dystopia so believable that it ruined his capacity to find a happy ending. I couldn’t believe some computer hacking and some luck against Elysium’s defenses would create any real change to the pervasive problems. Narrative problems like the one you mention — about Spider’s illegal transport system — paled in comparison to larger problems with the film’s conclusion.

JMM: Yup. You got that right. Out of time and out of ideas — was that Blomkamp’s fault, or the suits who financed the film? Whatever the reason, it did highlight the fact that the the last ⅓ paled in comparison to the first ⅔.

But even if the film ended badly, which it did, should this result in a negative for the overall worthiness of the film. Above, you used the term “overriding sense of failure”, I mean, I didn’t leave the theater angry. As you walked out, what was your state of mind?

Didion: We can’t know who ultimately started chopping the ideas out of the third act. But we can comment on the effect, can’t we? My ultimate takeaway was the feeling that either our culture won’t put up with a film that imagines a real change to fundamental inequality, or that our culture is willing to raise the topic and then pastes an implausibly happy ending on it.

Ultimately I’d give this film a solid three stars out of five, but I must say that I hope Blomkamp gets more work, and that perhaps he doesn’t get saddled with $100m projects like this one, but rather smaller and more thoughtful projects.

JMM: I’ll go to three point five, as I did call it a flawed first class entertainment. Speaking of smaller budgets as well as thoughtful projects, I guess I will move District 9 up to the top spot in my queue. Any last comments, gripes, favorite parts, least favorite parts?

Didion: I can hardly wait to hear what you’ve got to say about District 9. LOVE that film.

I always forget that you love to ask about favorite/worst parts of the film, and I always forget to think about that while I’m watching! But there’s a teeny moment I loved which follows Matt Damon getting flooded with radiation poisoning at work. He’s lying on a hospital bed, and a mechanized robo-doctor is examining him, telling him exactly (brutally) how dire his condition is. And then it drops a paltry little bottle of pills on the bed. It’s possibly the most miserable and lowest Damon’s character gets during the film. In other words, with no gross-out operations, spectacular violence, or super-CGI, the scene pulls off a nice trick of making you feel his pain. A good example of what Blomkamp can do with a small scene. How about you?

JMM: That was marvelous. I don’t think I had that in mind at all — but wow. On the other end of the spectrum – with Max’s parole officer, they really went cheap. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a worse representation of a non-human interacting with a human in terms of visual and technological  expertise.

But speaking of a small scene, that had significant impact. At the cocktail party, the robo-butler offers Delacourt a drink, and she dismisses him with a flick of the wrist. I noticed that and hated her for it.

Didion: In the end, JMM, I’m sorry to see that our August movie doldrums weren’t relieved by Elysium as much as I’d hoped. But the fall has lots of good stuff lined up. I’m hoping that our next convo will cover a different kind of film — perhaps a comedy? — that we can dig into. Looking forward to it, as always!

JMM: Thanks Didion. I am in full agreement about the doldrums. I’m calling it a summer-long down-turn. Elysium did brighten the summer while in the anticipation stage, and yes it might have been a lot better. Fall’s schedule does look delicious. See you then.

…in which “The Great Gatsby” (2013) makes two critics quote great lines at one another

American teenagers still get marched through F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) early in their high school careers, told that it’s a classic. I hadn’t read it since then, so it was a revelation during the past few weeks to find how much I remembered its contemplative mood. Gatsby is still as inscrutable, and Daisy as shadowy as I remember. It’s a beautiful, evasive book punctuated with moments of the most beautiful prose and clarity of insight — all the better for being so slim and accessible to high school kids.

Told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, a well-to-do Midwesterner whose job selling bonds has landed him a house out on the shores of Long Island Sound, the story fixates on Carraway’s fantastically wealthy neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Rumors fly about him: he might be an Oxford man, or a murderer, or perhaps just a liar. As if to cultivate those tales, Gatsby throws lavish parties and uses oddly unpopular expressions like “old sport.” But as we learn early on, part of this is a show for the benefit of Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan, who lives with her lout of a husband across a small bay. Daisy and Gatsby had a short romance years ago when he was a poor serviceman stationed in her hometown of St. Louis. Famously — memorably — Gatsby stands at the edge of his property in the evenings, gazing out across the water to the green light at the end of the Buchanans’ pier, longing for her and hoping that his new wealth and status might be enough to win her back. 

Jack Clayton’s 1974 film with Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, and Sam Waterston emphasized the gauzy, sun-lit aspects of the tale, and the grandeur of Gatsby’s house, but critics generally felt the film was better at conveying the surface appearance of the tale than the book’s melancholy soul. The New York Times’ Vincent Canby famously complained that “the sets and costumes and most of the performances are exceptionally good, but the movie itself is as lifeless as a body that’s been too long at the bottom of a swimming pool.” It may have got the 1920s/ Jazz Age look right, but it failed to capture the classic Americanness of this story.

All the more reason for a new interpretation. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire in the three core roles, does Baz Luhrmann’s much-anticipated film achieve what Clayton’s could not? I sat down for a chat about the film with film critic and blogger JustMeMike, with whom I’ve analyzed films in the past — most recently Zero Dark Thirty.

JMM: Great question, Didion. Upon publication in 1925, the book sales were tepid: about 20,000 copies sold in the 1st year following publication. In contrast, the book has sold about 405,000 copies in the first three months of this year. And that number would not include the copy I bought late in April, after not being able to acquire one from my nearest public library.

But before we launch into a discussion of the film, I’d like to point out that the cost of this film was in the West Eggish neighborhood of $127 million. One would have to be quite creative to spend that much money on a movie. And just think of the clothing and accessories tie-ins with Prada, Tiffany & Co, and Brooks Brothers. I don’t think I’ll be trotting off to Brooks Brothers to pick up a straw boater at $198 a pop. How about you? Will you be going in for the 1920s look?

Didion: As long as I can score a new tiara, I’ll be all set. You know how us professors get paid so lavishly that a visit to Tiffany is, like, yawn.

So I’m curious, JMM — tell me your thoughts about the relationship between book and film. Obviously, literary adaptations are always tricky; directors want to make films that anyone can see, from big fans of the book to those who’ve never read it. Do you think Luhrmann succeeds?

JMM: Yes, he succeeds. As you said above, Gatsby is inscrutable which to me means that it is subject to many interpretations — almost as many as the number of bits of confetti and streamers that fell during the Gatsby soirees.

I think the transfer of the literary to the screen was well done. Especially if you consider that the charm of the book is less the story, and more the excellence of the writing.

Didion: I agree with you in part. I felt Luhrmann succeeded with the overall look and the vividness of the characters — no one is going to say, as Canby did about the previous version, that this is lifeless — but I disliked the hyperactive melodrama of the film. It missed, to me, the book’s soul: its narrator’s desire for something real behind all that glitz.

JMM: Yeah. In the film, the Carraway character was either in awe or watching with stunned amazement — or twirling a glass in his hand — but isn’t that what makes the book so difficult to film? The charms of Nick are all his internal discoveries rather than something he actually does?

Didion: That’s exactly right. Nick wants to believe that Gatsby really is “worth the whole damn bunch altogether,” as he shouts to Gatsby across the lawn. But the film doesn’t quite show us that Gatsby is anything more than an imperfect invention. Luhrmann couldn’t quite commit: are we supposed to attach to Gatsby? or are we supposed to see through him, and thus become aware of Nick’s naivete?

JMM: That’s a tough question. The story opens with Gatsby as a mythic person; no one knew his reality. Including Nick who befriends him. Didn’t Lurhmann (and Fitzgerald) go out of their way to make Gatsby mysterious as well as the subject of gossip? If so, can we call Carraway naive?

Didion: I suppose this is what makes the book so endlessly appealing to high school English classrooms! It allows kids to scrutinize the difference between surface appearance and the person within.

One of the things I loved about the book was Nick’s voice throughout: his eagerness to believe that Gatsby and Daisy really felt a true love for one another. Nick is the only character who wants to reveal his true self, and to believe that Gatsby is truly good on the inside, even when the whole crowd lies, hides things, and/or reveals their untrustworthiness. So I’m disappointed by the over-the-top emotional melodrama that Luhrmann laid on top of everything. Luhrmann’s style worked so well for me in capturing the excesses of the 1920s, but just fell down utterly when making me care about the characters — Tobey Maguire’s Nick included.

JMM: Well I will certainly agree about Gatsby being good. His problem was that he was a dreamer who couldn’t let go of the past. Daisy — not so good. Tom Buchanan not good at all. But Maguire’s Carraway is more of a Greek chorus, a chronicler, a reality mirror to Jay Gatsby’s unreality. Was it Maguire’s dull characterization of Carraway, or was it the script, or simply the way that Lurhmann directed? I can’t say for sure.

What I can say for sure is that I was quite involved with the melodramatic last two-thirds of the film, much more so than during the razzle-dazzle first third.

Didion: Really?!? Well, this might be our most substantial disagreement! I loved the film’s big middle — its second act — but the final act had me rolling my eyes.

You clearly didn’t like Maguire as Nick. I’m more on the fence. What better actor alive could capture that innocence, and the pleasure of entering into the excesses of the super-rich of the 1920s? I was less interested in the way that Luhrmann created a frame for the film — Nick, months later, installed in an asylum for nervous exhaustion and alcoholism, trying to capture the causes of his illness for a psychologist. Maguire was neither very good in those scenes, nor did the director use them in a way to compel the audience’s connection to the character.

I will say that Luhrmann’s casting was great. Every single character looked the part — I mean, damn, Carey Mulligan! Elizabeth Debicki as the golfer/socialite Jordan Baker! and even that shiny, tanned, and slightly creepy face of DiCaprio’s as Gatsby — it all looked exactly right.

JMM: Loved the casting myself. Except that I didn’t buy that Tom Buchanan and Carraway were classmates. Meaning Edgerton and Maguire looked about 10 years different. Maybe it is less about Maguire’s performance that gave me cause for concern. I’ll refer back to the statement I made earlier about Carraway’s charms being internal.

The framing device worked for me because it gave them a way of getting the words on the screen. Whether the sanatorium aspect was good or bad isn’t a major point for me.

But back to the casting. Many have said that Leo was a bit too old for the role. Maybe. But his tan and his weathered look come from his lifestyle and stress. I liked the way Leo brought out Gatsby’s loss of confidence when he first meets (re-unites) with Daisy in the Carraway cottage. And her fluttered look perfectly matched his.

Didion: Argh! I hated that scene! It didn’t work for me AT ALL. It was all so overdone … like a kabuki version of anxiety. And all the extended leadup to the actual meeting between Gatsby and Daisy — it went on forever — took away from what the scene should have done, which is to cement in Nick’s mind that these two share perfect, long-lost love.

JMM: Well I’ll agree to disagree. But that came from the book didn’t it? Gatsby leaving, going outside and standing in the rain until he was drenched. Beyond that, that scene had the one laugh-out-loud moment in the whole film. When Gatsby asks, Is everything okay, You have all you need for the tea? And Nick replies, “Well maybe more flowers….”

I also wonder about the “cementing”. Is it is Nick’s mind or ours?

Didion: Certainly in Nick’s mind, but isn’t that anchored to our minds as viewers? Don’t we need to believe, even for a moment, that Gatsby and Daisy aren’t just glossy pretty people, but truly in love — even if the film later throws some of that open to question?

That’s why I found the scene so needlessly goofy. I wanted it to show another side of Gatsby; to show that he wasn’t all self-assurance and polish. But this scene went for cheap laughs rather than more depth to his character. It made me think that Luhrmann is, above all, just a ham-handed director who can’t manage a single minute of emotional subtlety.

JMM: About Lurhmann, I won’t disagree with ham-handed. I won’t disagree with lacks subtlety — but I must give him props for showmanship, hype, and marketing — care to venture down that road for a bit?

Isla Fisher as the blowsy Myrtle

Didion: I’m completely down with you there. Which brings up another topic: the soundtrack, and especially the confluence of musical genres in the film (dotted with hip hop by Jay-Z, who also served as executive producer for the soundtrack).

The scenes of crazy parties are just awesome. No subtlety needed. And although I was a little taken aback when the Jay-Z’s song “100$ Bill” blasted underneath those scenes — because I love 1920s music and hoped to hear more of it — I ultimately loved the whole thing. The music also includes new interpretations of 1920s songs as well as covers of Amy Winehouse, Beyoncé, and others, altogether creating the most lush soundtrack I’ve heard in years. Loved it. And I was so glad to see those great party scenes on the big screen.

JMM: Yes the music worked for me too. I think the press has made far too much of the inclusion of hip hop, but coming out of the theater I only remembered two pieces of music — Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” which was Daisy’s theme, and the famed Gershwin opus “Rhapsody in Blue.”

The party music was great — and would have been pleasurable no matter what.

Didion: Can I ask you about Carey Mulligan’s portrayal of Daisy for a moment, and in general the film’s view of women? I thought she was wonderful, of course — but we never learn much more about her. She functions more as a figment of Gatsby’s imagination than as a real, three-dimensional person. Let’s not forget how utterly absent her daughter is from the story. One of the things that affected me was Daisy’s comment that she hopes her daughter grows up to be “a beautiful little fool,” because a fool is “the best thing a girl can be in this world.”

JMM: Great thinking Didion. I’m with you completely. It is a scary part of the story. It is one thing for Daisy to be like that, and she was, and another thing for her to wish that for her little girl. Realistically, I think all the female characters came off badly in the book — even Jordan. But as we can see from both the book and the film, there are no likeable characters. Daisy was all surface, she not only hadn’t any depth, but I think we were supposed to see that immediately.

When we first meet Daisy and Jordan, Fitzgerald describes them like having the weight and substance of balloons. They flutter and quiver and so forth. Fitzgerald made it a point to make them lacking substance.

“They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.”

Didion: Oh, JMM, I love that catch — I’d forgotten that beautiful description in the book. Fitzgerald had little interest in giving them much weight. In fact, that line of Daisy’s about her daughter being a fool is the only glimpse we have of her dissatisfaction with her lot; otherwise she appears committed to being a fool, mostly at least.

Jordan is a bit more interesting; the book suggests that she might not be such an honest sportswoman. And in the film Elizabeth Debicki’s huge eyes and tall dancer’s frame make her tower over Tobey Maguire in a way that was always mysterious and evocative. But this isn’t really a film about female characters except as love objects for the men in the story.

JMM:  True. Let’s move to another smaller venue — the underground club behind the barbershop door where they went for lunch. Did you like Amitabh Bachchan as Wolfsheim, or did you feel this was a role incorrectly cast?

Didion: Loved the speakeasy scene, and Bachchan was perfectly cast as Wolfsheim — but (and this is a big but) Lurhmann cut out most of what made Wolfsheim such a crucial character.

Now, there are good reasons to cut it out: the book is unapologetically anti-Semitic, and racist in ways that only get a slight gloss in the film. On reflection, I’m not sorry that Luhrmann decided to cut down the book’s nasty white supremacy and the cartoonish portrayal of Wolfsheim as Gatsby’s main man.

So Bachchan doesn’t get much of a chance here, but his whole appearance — his unnervingly sparkling eyes — was ideal for the part. How about you?

JMM: I’ve seen many films with Bachchan and I knew what I was going to get from him. I think Lurhmann cast him as Wolfsheim because it would help market the film internationally — and also because who else might have been considered — Mandy Patinkin?

As for the racist and anti-Semitic remarks — I thought there were plenty of them included in the film to make the point, so even if Lurhmann cut back volume wise — he didn’t soft-pedal those topics in any way.

Another point — didn’t they include enough mysterious phone calls to have us consider that Gatsby was indeed involved in shady doings. And then once they’ve done this, who do we meet at the parties but NY celebs, senators, congressmen, and even the police commissioner was at the speakeasy — so I don’t think Wolfsheim needed any more depth on screen for us to see.

Didion: So this brings me to my last question: about the film’s use of 3D. Even though I’d sworn to myself that I’d skip seeing the 3D versions of film (after Tintin, which was meh), I nevertheless forked out the extra few bucks this time. And… big disappointment.

Now, I get it that Luhrmann’s filming ethos is summed up with, “why not?” But I think the 3D not only failed to add anything, particularly during the lush party scenes, but it detracted for me from the attractiveness of the set and costumes overall. I’d strongly recommend that people see it in 2D.

JMM: The 3D was added in not because of “why not” but because of the revenue stream. This was strictly a marketing decision and a gimmick. As you said if anything it was unnecessary at best, and a distraction at worst. The difference between the 2D ticket and the 3D at my theater was $5. So I think that was behind it.

As was the music. As was Bachchan.

I’ve a question: Do you have a favorite quote from the book/film?

Didion: I’ve been thinking about that. And honestly, I must admit that it’s not the beautiful famous final line of the novel, which Lurhmann uses here (to his credit): “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” A gorgeous line, but so self-conscious.

I had a whole pile of lines I loved in the book — they appear only occasionally in the midst of Fitzgerald’s generally sparse prose. But I think my favorite might be, “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”

JMM: That is a line filled with beautiful imagery. The one I liked best came on the next to last page. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Of course that is why we love the book. About the book and the film version — a thematic question — Lurhmann’s showed this at least three times. — workers with pick-axes working on the mounds of ashes. Is this indicative of a heaven (the palaces and mansions and the party-life) and indicative of a hellish existence — real life with work and sweat? I mean is this at the core of the story, or is it the more surfacey — the old money versus the new money that is one of the base themes? Any thoughts on that?

Didion: Loved the way he created the old optician’s billboard, of a god/death watching over this hellish middle place of sweat and hard work. But the scenes of workmen toiling just seemed, again, like a cartoonish Broadway set.

Your broader question still troubles me. Does the film do enough to satisfy me in capturing the snobbery of old-money types like Tom Buchanan? And the striving desire of new-money types like Gatsby for a glamorous object like old-money Daisy, whose voice “sounds like money”? No, but then our culture is much less concerned about old money than theirs was. I was also a little disappointed that the film didn’t make much of the divide between East Coast society and the Midwesterners (Nick, Daisy, Gatsby) who have arrived there — that is, arrived from a more innocent place.

JMM: Maybe because in the 20s there was so little new money, and the old money wasn’t that old. Tom was a Midwestern guy too. I also recall that Daisy’s mother, at the party, told Daisy about all the “eligible” soldiers attending — rather than the number of good looking men. So even though that party wasn’t an East Coast affair — it still had its own version of snobbery.

I believe that Lurhmann could not do too much with the old money vs. new money because there weren’t any characters (except Tom and Daisy) to represent it with any kind if depth.

Didion: One of my Facebook friends said recently, with a bit of self-deprecation, that she loves anything Luhrmann does because it’s so pretty and shiny. “It’s art, not history!” she proclaimed to haters like me.

If I were to sum up my feelings about the film, I’d say that Luhrmann’s gift for creating shiny, pretty things is prodigious but ultimately I want more emotional depth. I’m glad I saw it on the big screen for those amazing party sequences, but I will never see it again.

JMM: Strong words, Didion! I want to ask for a one word description of how you felt when leaving the theater.

Didion:  Honestly, I felt a bit alienated by the film. Part of this is appropriate — that is, we’re supposed to be appalled by Tom and Daisy’s carelessness toward everyone around them. But neither did I feel especially upset by Gatsby’s end; I just hadn’t learned to care about him the way I ought to have. Although I appreciated Lurhmann’s eagerness to show us Fitzgerald’s fine prose — appearing as actual words on the screen — that final line about “boats against the current” remains opaque enough to me that I’m still not sure I know how to feel about it. So yeah, “alienated.”

How about you?

JMM: For me, I think a phrase rather than one word — and it goes back to Gatsby’s delusional behavior. Despite his lack of a reality — I still loved him — hated the Buchanans. Gatsby was a mystery — the Buchanan’s weren’t. So it is far easier for me to admire Gatsby than them. But having said that, I won’t call him heroic or anything like that. And yes, his ending isn’t anything that creates despair in me either. When I left the theater, I was positive about the film.

Didion: Can I ask whether you like Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge (2001)? Because I’m wondering whether this film will appeal more broadly than to the longtime Luhrmann fans who love his “shiny, pretty” things.

JMM: Thought you’d never ask. As for Moulin Rouge, I could only get 30 minutes into it before shutting down my DVD player. Gatsby wasn’t like that for me because I had just read the book. Moulin Rouge had no history for me — other than my travels to Paris. But I never finished it. I’m not a fan of Luhrmann’s but I do appreciate his skills. Or maybe I’ll say that Luhrmann can certainly spend money and make a fabulous looking recreation of another era.

I have Luhrmann’s Australia still unwatched. Guess I’ll be getting to that one soon.

But you know, The Great Gatsby is still an iconic American novel — so I do expect another film version down the road.

Didion: That made me laugh, because I watched maybe 20 minutes of Moulin Rouge before quitting, too! All that overwrought singing and Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman looking at one another like speed freaks … not for me. I will say that this film is just not nearly that spastic.

It’s been a million years since I saw his Romeo + Juliet, which I liked at the time. I will never, ever, ever watch Australia, however.

JMM: And I’ll probably never watch Romeo + Juliet.

Didion: JMM, this has been a pleasure as ever. Even more so because I got to comb over some of the best prose in the book, and engage in the back-and-forth with such a worthy collaborator. Even though I’m more negative about the film than you are, I’m still glad I saw Luhrmann’s version of the Jazz Age onscreen. And I’m looking forward to planning another conversation with you sometime this summer!

JMM: Thank you Didion: It is always fun to work with you. I can safely guarantee that our next viewing won’t be a Luhrmann film. Until the next time — thanks!

…in which we chat about “Zero Dark Thirty,” torture, surprise, and post-9/11 trauma

When film blogger JustMeMike and I agreed back in November to have a conversation about Zero Dark Thirty (which we’ll abbreviate to ZD30 for ease – and which is, of course, the dramatic tale of the CIA’s pursuit of Osama Bin Laden), I had no idea that it would receive as many raves, nor so many political criticisms.

My main concern (which I voiced to JMM beforehand): that I’d be disappointed by Kathryn Bigelow’s much-anticipated follow-up to The Hurt Locker, for which she won Best Picture and Best Director prizes at the 2009 Academy Awards.

High expectations, attacks from both sides of the political spectrum (from the left over the film’s depiction of torture; from the right over whether the filmmakers gained access to state secrets), and then the Academy failed to nominate Bigelow for Best Director this year – how does one watch a film fairly given all this chatter?

No worries about spoilers for the first half of this long conversation – we’ll warn you when we switch over to spoiling big plot points.

JMM: Hi Didion. I’ve been really looking forward to this just as you have. So let’s get this thing going. You mentioned that you were afraid that your expectations for ZD30 were high. Now that we’ve both seen the film, I’ll lay my cards on the table first to say that I was not disappointed at all. Just the opposite — I felt the film was great. What about you?

Didion: I so agree with you. I left the theater in tears, due to a rush of conflicting emotions. I can’t quite believe Bigelow was able to convey these so effectively. I think it’s a really major film — better than anything I’ve seen this year.

Yes: fear of high expectations due to the threat of disappointment. But I’d also read relatively little about the film itself beforehand, so I didn’t realize quite where it would take me.

Can I just start by saying that the opening 1-2 minutes of the film were possibly the most amazing way to get a film started?

JMM: You mean the WTC audio?

Didion: Yes!

JMM: The WTC voices over a blank screen led to a CIA black site was a seriously affecting jump. Especially since we have no idea of what we will see. Were you amazed because of the unexpected transition or just the impact of the voices taking us back to 9/11?

Didion: Yes: what was so amazing for me made me relive a bit of 9/11. The voices we hear are not ones we heard that day. But you find yourself lost in thought, remembering where you were. And, hence (in my case at least), realizing the extent to which that one day caused a cultural trauma for so many of us. It put me in mind of sitting in a room at school where someone had set up a TV from the A/V room so we could gather and watch the events unfolding. Surrounded by my colleagues and students, all helplessly watching something unthinkable. And then I went home and didn’t stop crying for, what, 24 hours? 48 hours? a week? two weeks?

Now, I don’t quite know how Bigelow knew to do this, or knew how it might affect people in theaters. Or how she chose the voices she did. But it was an amazing way to frame this film, because I think ultimately its tense action scenes are subsumed under its attempt to tell us something about the big wound we’ve all had for the last 11+ years.

JMM: Some have questioned the legitimacy of using those voices — after all, someone could recognize them. I’ll leave that for others to decide. For me the framing was totally unexpected. I even wondered if this was a malfunction in the theater. You know — a gray screen — but I moved past it. As for me, I was crossing the Hudson River from Manhattan to New Jersey, and we were able to see the smoke and flames while on board the ferry. Later we watched on TV and from our own office windows. Yes, we were helpless as well.

Didion: Yikes!

JMM: I find the comment you make about the wound we’ve lived with these many years interesting. It will never leave us — either as individuals or as a nation….

Didion: Can I ask you something about the film as a whole that’s been debated publicly? Torture. I was prepared to arrive here today and dismiss the charge that the film advocates for torture as a means of getting information. I could certainly develop an argument that falls in line with what Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal have said: that it represents the perspectives of CIA figures without endorsing those views.

But honestly, I believe the film gets as close as possible to arguing that torture leads to information — even as it also says that torture helps to procure a bunch of misleading, incorrect, and distracting information as well. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

JMM: I think the crux of the matter about the film’s position on torture in indeed ambivalent. Those who have decried the film claim that film glorifies torture and that the film misleads by implying that torture led directly to discovery of enough information to mount the Seal Team operation. I don’t agree with that at all, and here’s why.

The first torture scene is two years after 9/11. Not much was gleaned from this particular detainee. The film hardly glorified torture because both Dan and Maya were shown to suffer from being participants, and finally the reality of the process was that it was a combination of dogged detective work which included the sifting through mountains of paperwork, intercepted phone calls, and the development of information provided by informers. That’s why the mission wasn’t mounted until 2011.

So yes, torture was a part of it — but not the only part nor the most important part.

Didion: Really nicely put, JMM. I agree with everything you’ve said; indeed, this is a film that celebrates the dogged pursuit of reasoned, intelligent analysis of masses of information. Too right.

This film also makes it clear that this work is hard on its analysts. Not just because they’re in danger while they live abroad, but because they are so determined, so single-minded, that they lose track of other things in their lives.

This might as well be a scene of my office. Except let’s just say the end result of my research doesn’t exactly seem as important as Maya’s.

In saying that, I don’t want you to think this is one of those films that pathologizes Maya’s determination, or suggests she’s a pathetic example of a woman with no love interest, no family back home (a tired movie trope if ever there was one). Those things are true, but I thought the film was good at saying thank god she threw herself into her work.

JMM: She certainly did throw herself into her work. By the way, have you any reactions to the way she was perceived first by Dan, then by the CIA Station Chief Joseph Bradley, and finally by the CIA Director?

Didion: Right you are to note that I am sometimes prickly about these portrayals!

The film doesn’t milk it, but it shows that her male colleagues call Maya “the girl.” They do so perhaps in part because, as played by Jessica Chastain — with her tiny frame and enormous blue eyes — she doesn’t look nearly as focused/steely as she really is. At an early point, some of her male colleagues have a conversation about her in which they wonder whether she can take it (witnessing the torture, living in hot zones like Pakistan, etc) — and the scene goes like this:

Dan: Don’t you think she’s a little young for the hard stuff?
Bradley: Washington says she’s a killer.

What does all this mean? I think Bigelow chose a frail-looking, wide-eyed actor like Chastain precisely because she’s capable of provoking conflicted emotions in people. The jolt of realizing that someone as innocent-looking as she could be relentlessly single-minded is brilliant.

Does this jibe with you? And what did you think of Chastain more broadly in the role?

JMM: It wasn’t her physical stature — the other woman analyst, Jessica (Jennifer Ehle), was a bigger woman — it was the fact that they chose this work and lived it 24/7 with such an amazing devotion to it. Some have said Maya was obsessed to the point of being psychotic, I don’t agree with that. But yes — the choice of Chastain as the focal point was not something you might have foreseen. It was a great decision, and I’ll give Boal the credit for writing the screenplay that way. From another perspective — I read that Rooney Mara was also considered — but then we would have had the same physical type (tiny woman, big eyes) anyway.

So using Chastain was definitely a major plus. Which leads to another question. Which male character did you think had the biggest impact on you?

Didion: I’d like to say one quick thing about Chastain: she didn’t always work for me. I almost feel like a traitor for saying it, because by the end of the film I saw so clearly why she was a perfect choice for the filmmakers. I believe it’s because there’s something just so jarring about her waves of great hair, no matter where she’s stationed. And there are a couple of scenes early on when I had to fight to believe she really was a CIA analyst. But as I say, by the end of the film it all worked for me.

Damn you Chastain and your awesome hair.

I love your question about the most effective male character, and it’s hard for me to answer. I think it was Patrick, the squadron leader played by Joel Edgerton — from late in the film when the team finally gets permission to go ahead with the capture/kill plan. He’s the member of the squad who seems most anxious about the plan. His trepidation is so beautifully portrayed.

How about you?

JMM: Let’s back up a bit — you held Chastain’s looks against her earlier in the film? I wouldn’t have expected that from you. This very fact that she wasn’t a plain Jane with dull clothes and whatever to play down her looks seems to me that you would have objected to that….

Didion: Not held her looks against her — that’s too strong. We’re all used to having gorgeous people in Hollywood films. But her hair was so perfect in every single scene — it stretches credulity for a woman as single-minded as she was. Especially because that particular ‘do of hers takes time. It’s a problem less with Chastain than with the hair & makeup people. (Dan’s hair, in contrast, was absolutely believable.)

Dan Clarke with realistic desert hair

In retrospect I think Bigelow made choices early in the film to create doubts from the audience about Maya. Can she handle a suspect being tortured? Can she get the higher-ups to buy her theories? All of this is important to see Maya’s development over the course of the film (and the many years intervening).

But as I watched those early scenes (the first hour, even?) I wasn’t sure Chastain was the right choice. This is what I meant to say.

JMM:  Okay. I have it in focus now. Staying with Chastain’s development — I think very early in the initial torture scene, Dan and Maya go out, then return but before they return, he asks her if she wants the black balaclava mask, and she says no. That established her toughness for me right then and there. But that’s not the actress — that’s the script.

Back to the male actors. Just so I know we are talking about. There’s the scene with one guy sitting on a couch and the other tossing the horseshoes. The one tossing them says, “You really believe this story?  Osama Bin Laden? Which part convinced you?” The other indicates Maya and says, “Her confidence.” Which one of those was Edgerton?

The marvelous, trepidatious Patrick (Joel Edgerton)

Didion: The non-horseshoe throwing guy with the trust in Maya. The horseshoe guy is Chris Pratt, who plays a real moron on Parks and Recreation — so much so, in fact, that I just couldn’t buy him as a serious character in this film. My reaction against him was so profound simply because he’s so good as a goober on TV. (He is excellent on TV, BTW.)

Chris Pratt, who is too good a comedian on Parks and Recreation for me to take him seriously as a SEAL

One other very tiny complaint: Bigelow stacked this film with recognizable actors. Here I kept thinking, “Oh, there’s Mark Duplass and Édgar Ramírez!”

No one in film can do this face like Édgar Ramírez. Mmmm.

And: “Oh, I’d forgotten James Gandolfini would be in this! Hey, that’s Elizabeth Bennet from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice!” Very tiny complaints, but it did distract me a bit. Especially because I found the discoveries of no-name actors like Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie from The Hurt Locker to be so wonderful.

JMM:   I recognized Mark Strong, and Duplass, Gandolfini of course — but I didn’t have a problem with them. They were identifiable actors in roles we didn’t have names for. Gandolfini was the CIA director — but I don’t think he brought anything to the role — so yes — you’re right to take Bigelow’s to task for the use of those actors.

Not Lizzie Bennet, but rather Jennifer Ehle as CIA agent Jessica.

Didion: A couple more questions before we cut to the latter part of the film (and warn people about spoilers). First, was there anything about the early part of the film that didn’t work for you?

JMM:  Not really. I went in knowing how the story would end, but not the film. Likewise I didn’t know how the film would begin — but I thought it would be a slow start and gain speed as it went on. So I won’t say that the early part didn’t work — instead I’ll say that I liked the latter parts better. Do you have something in mind that didn’t work for you early on?

Didion: Not at all. In fact, I realized after about an hour: that Bigelow has done something truly wonderful in showcasing the work of all these lower-level, on-the-ground individuals working so hard to figure out problems. To focus on them rather than the politicians or the generals isn’t just refreshing; I actually want to say it’s democratic.

Another question: which male character proved most vivid/important for you?

JMM: That’s an easy one. Has to be Jason Clark as Dan, the enhanced interrogation expert which was nothing like what he might have been doing in Langley, Second was that he ultimately decided to return to Langley, as he put it — to a “normal job.” It was good to see him make that career change. It was so difficult watching him do those things to detainees:

Can I be honest with you? I am bad news. I am not your friend. I am not going to help you. I’m going to break you.

So his character arc was very rewarding for me. In fact he was one of the few characters who really changed within the context of the film. Do you agree?

Didion: He was great. A very appealing person — you can see how he was able to play the good guy during his interrogations but also capable of jarring brutality. I also liked the fact that you saw him age by the near-end of the film. It showed what this work does to people.

Okay, shall we switch to the film’s last hour or so? SPOILERS AHEAD!

Once Maya gets her suspicions confirmed and the CIA commits to an operation to attack the compound in Abbottabad, the film shifts into overdrive. And I don’t mean it becomes a Tom Cruise-like action film. I thought the methodical, terrifying, and nerve-wracking preparation and detail of the compound scenes were some of the most amazing sequences I’ve ever seen on film. What do you think, JMM — did that work as well for you as it did for me?

JMM:  Did it work for me? Absolutely. In fact, this was easily the highlight of the film. Since we all knew the outcome of the mission, could Bigelow and Boal still make it exciting, and scary, and filled with tension and even fear? I think they easily hit a homerun with that. The fact that nearly all of the mission was viewed through the night vision goggles — gave the scene an otherworldly feel to it. The creeping around corners, or up the stairs…. We were placed in their shoes and we didn’t know who or what would behind the next doorway — this was just a brilliantly planned, conceived and executed piece of film.

What was it that you felt about it. Was it the feelings the scene created for you, or was it the technical visuals that made it work for you?

Didion: Exactly. The night vision goggles, interspersed with shots from the helicopter — absolutely gripping. But not in a typical action movie way — for maybe three big reasons, as I see it.

First, there’s a moment before the operation when one of the squadron figures (is it Patrick?) warns her that he has lost men in previous missions. I don’t know how to emphasize this enough: the film somehow manages to emphasize the real risk of the operation in a way that seems both gentle and devastating.

Second, the scenes of the entire mission are lengthy and fraught, almost as if it was done in real time. If there’s one thing Bigelow is a true master of, it’s developing a highly detailed and realistic military scenario that doesn’t glorify its characters, but rather emphasizes the true danger. Is there any other director who can do this?

And finally, when was the last time you saw a film that relegated its star to the sidelines for such a crucial sequence? I’m blown away by the fact that this entire part of the film hardly shows much of Maya at all. There’s something about the fact that she, like us, had to experience it vicariously.

I keep emphasizing that this isn’t an action movie kind of sequence. And yet perhaps I’m not quite putting that right. It made me so nervous I almost had the shakes!

JMM: Great point: the star is absent from the encounter. I thought so at the time but hadn’t thought of it since. Marvelous way of setting her aside and relegating her to watching it as we did.

The second point is also quite telling — in most previous Bigelow films, I also thought that action was handled not only masterfully, but also in a way that marked it as quite different that the kinds we were used to seeing..

Your first remark — about reinforcing the elements of danger and high risk — Bigelow outfoxed me on that one too. I expected a shooting casualty — not that a whole chopper would go down.

I wondered about the final accounting of the body. We knew from the news reports and Pentagon briefings that the body had been disposed of at sea. How did you react about the fact that Boal and Bigelow decided to NOT include this?

Didion: Isn’t it strange — I didn’t think about the issue of the body at all. But I was so moved by the fact that they showed very little of the body. Again: what kind of Hollywood film doesn’t show a bloodied body? We saw more of the other bodies in the house than we did of OBL’s.

JMM: I figured since we never saw an actor portraying Bin Laden — there was no need to show any material views of the corpse.

Didion: And let me say I think this was an extraordinary choice to make. There is no grandstanding. I loved the moment when one of the SEALs says to the shooter, “You killed the 3rd-deck person” in a way that seemed incredulous. None of them can quite absorb the moment. The fact that it’s surreal for them makes it all the more surreal for us.

A rare (and ambivalent) flag shot from the film

JMM: I’m with you on that. No grandstanding or flag waving. No one could use the term jingoistic to describe it.

There was one scene that caught me completely by surprise. In the sense of I didn’t see it coming: the hotel in Islamabad blown up by a car bomb down on the street. That really shocked me. And it solidified for us exactly how dangerous being in country really was.

Didion: Too right! NO idea that was coming. No wonder I was such a nervous wreck by the end.

The scene that really floored me — and the one that wound up presenting me with so many conflicting emotions: when Maya gets on the aircraft carrier. JMM, tell me why you think that scene is so powerful.

JMM:  I didn’t quite leave in tears but I thought the last few moments with Maya on the big air transport plane, totally alone — with nothing to do — no place to go — and no one to see was a supremely difficult moment for all of us. I think that particular image was deeply affecting.

It spoke of the desolation one might have facing the unknown, or the sense of completion of a difficult task which means you are now facing an emptiness There was no other way to convey the moment — it was Bigelow’s point to temper the success of the mission by showing us that for Maya it might be the forerunner of hollowness or depression.

If people want to talk about torture in the negative sense, then when you look at this — what Maya is left with — this is really horrifying to contemplate.

Didion: I’m so with you. What that scene conveys is that the killing of OBL is almost an anti-climax. The best analogy I can think of is that this must be what it’s like to have a family member murdered, and one dedicates all one’s emotional energy toward catching, convicting, and imprisoning the murderer — only to realize that one still has a lot of grieving to do afterward. We place a lot of emphasis on retribution, but ultimately this film shows that Maya still just has a big hole in her soul the way the rest of us do. It amounts to a film that is greater than the sum of its parts. An amazing achievement.

JMM: Early on I said that the film has been controversial and polarizing. I’d like to talk about a part of that now. A few members of the Actors community have expressed negative perspectives. Chief among those was that they believe Bigelow and Boal were all too comfortable in portraying the torture. While they may have been comfortable about it — I don’t think there was too much of it or too much emphasis placed on the role of torture by the filmmakers. Obviously Ed Asner, Martin Sheen, and David Clennon have the right to express their opinions, but do you believe they are making a fair judgment about Bigelow and Boal’s intent?

Didion: Like I said earlier, this is a tough one for me. If I were the judge in this case, I’d insist that we look at the entire film — and the film as a whole emphasizes such humanity that I would be forced to argue the scenes of torture do not constitute an endorsement. But it’s tricky because the film takes for granted — and does not editorialize about — the fact that agents used torture on detainees, and that it helped them get information. I think Asner, Sheen et al are wrong in emphasis but perhaps close to being right about the slippery nature of those early scenes.

You?

JMM: Before I answer, I really don’t want to throw the actors under the bus — but I do think it is interesting that none of them spoke up after President Obama announced that Bin Laden had been killed. Was there anyone, anywhere, that rose up and asked how did you get this info. Was torture involved? I don’t think a small Pakistani child called up and said you might be interested to know who lives across the street.

Didion: I think you’ve nailed something important: this film is agonizingly clear about the fact that one cannot trust the information you gain by torture. It simply amounts to yet more information, much of which might be false. Rather, this film advocates for the trained analysts whose job it is to think intelligently and in educated ways about the masses of conflicting information — indeed, about the sheer vast bulk of information.

JMM: I want to ask about a particular scene that did trouble me. And this might have been a bit of the Hollywood in the film — or make that a small bit of overriding luck. They are able to get their hands on a phone — clone it, and then with their sophisticated tools — somehow they end up driving right NEXT to the car with the courier. Did you find that believable? Talk about your needles in a haystack….

Didion: In such a long, methodical film it DID seem improbable (and quite fuzzy on the details), didn’t it?

JMM: I’ll give them time compression — it might have been many long months — but how did they get the phone — I’m a bit unclear on that.

James Gandolfini

Didion: So one of the things I said at the beginning of this conversation — a big, sloppy, grand statement — is that it’s the best thing I’ve seen all year. Is that too grand for you, JMM? You’ve seen a lot more films than I have — and have written about them wonderfully, so I imagine you have a strong opinion on this subject.

JMM: I’ll go you one better. I think this was the best film of the year and I think that I have to go all the way back to All the President’s Men to find a film based on real events that I liked as much as ZD30.

I think I measure a film by a number of standards but ultimately always ask whether I was engrossed by the film. Did it captivate me to the extent that I wasn’t bothered by the folks chomping popcorn a few seats away. I was fully and totally invested in this one — and for me, that’s a prime indicator of its excellence.

Didion: Let’s keep slathering on the superlatives, shall we?

As an academic I often find myself squirming when I think real-life events are portrayed in ways that don’t fly. So even though I have no idea what torture looks like, how a black site works, or how CIA operatives figure stuff out, I do know that absolutely none of those depictions onscreen felt phony or Hollywood-ized. For examples, see virtually every Hollywood film made about a historic event.

But I’ll go ya one further: this film is somehow also about us, about we who experienced 9/11 and have not learned to grieve. It leads us through a process of killing the architect of that attack and mass murder, but it does so such that we can get someplace beyond the drive for retribution.

I don’t know what to say beyond the fact that this is an amazing film — I’ve never seen anything like it. Even All the President’s Men didn’t deal with such subjects like the importance of figuring out who we are once our primary bad guy is dead. Or the fact that once he was dead, he just looked like an ordinary old man.

I’m not sure how far I’m willing to go with superlatives. But I’m tempted to say it’s the most amazing film achievement of the last ten years.

JMM: Well if that isn’t the grandaddy of superlatives than I don’t know what is. But I very much liked the reference you made about “who we are”. We are the ones who created the terms Enhanced Interrogation. I’m reminded of Hannah Arendt’s The Banality of Evil (which ties in with your remark about OBL being “like an ordinary old man”). In the Bourne film, David Straithairn says that the CIA is now ‘‘the sharp end of the stick”.

Didion: Tell me, JMM, have you seen anything else since watching ZD30, and are you now ruined for the rest of the films available in theaters at this time of year?

JMM: Like the detective said to Jack Nicholson at the end of Chinatown: “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

Forget it Didion — it’s January — there won’t be anything good coming out for a while. Or at least until April.

Didion: Sigh. I have a long list of things to see in the theater, but I just can’t imagine I’ll be able to see them without being disappointed. How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen ZD30?

JMM: You got that right Professor! —

Didion: Many, many thanks, JMM — what a pleasure to talk about this film. Such a stunning piece of work. [Tips her glass in the air]

JMM: My pleasure to have had the opportunity to work with you once more. I’ll raise my glass to that too!

“Prometheus” (2012): who’s your daddy?

It’s a Big Summer Blockbuster, people! It’s a prequel to Alien! And it asks the most fundamental philosophical questions known to man: who are we? where did we come from? why are we here?

As a result, one cannot discuss a film like Ridley Scott’s Prometheus alone — so one again I sit down with blogger extraordinaire JustMeMike of The Arts. Beginning last spring, we’ve discussed a number of films in depth beginning with White Material, Miral, Larry Crowne, David Fincher’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Whistleblower, and The Hunger Games.

To recap the film’s plot setup: it follows archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) who discover a series of primitive cave paintings and ancient art portraying early humans flanked by giant figures who point to a specific star configuration in the heavens. Believing this to be a star map, and believing further that those giant figures represent aliens who may be the creators of humankind, Shaw and Holloway set off with a scientific team on the starship Prometheus, funded by the Weyland Corporations, for the outer reaches of space to locate the aliens (whom they term “The Engineers”). The plan: to get those fundamental questions answered.

The ship is staffed with what, to Alien fans, will be a familiar group: the creepy robot David (Michael Fassbender); Meredith Vickers, the forbidding head of the expedition who’s got secrets (Charlize Theron); Janek, the ship’s captain qua cowboy (Idris Elba); and a ragtag/ unpredictable group of other crew and scientists whose motives remain to be uncovered. When they land and find a planet seemingly empty of creatures, they begin to explore an enormous ancient building complex … only to discover that perhaps it’s not empty after all.

 In classical myth, the god Prometheus created man out of clay, and later gave him the technology of fire after stealing it from the other gods. Will the latter-day crew of the Prometheus find a similarly benevolent race of creators? Or will they meet a nightmarish fate similar to that in the Greek myth: punished by being chained to a rock, destined to have his liver eaten by an eagle every day, only to have the liver grow back overnight?

More important: if this is a prequel to Alien, how exactly will it set the stage?

Here’s my prediction: wherever Ridley Scott decides to take us, it’ll probably be interesting.

NOTE: We’ve decided to start with general conversation about the film and only about midway, when we’ll warn you when you need to stop.

*****

JustMeMike: Watching Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley race against time, as well as the implacable killing machine/ alien, was a searing, visceral experience. So I brought that thought with me to a packed theater and settled in to watch Prometheus. Before we break down the film, what were your thoughts as you settled into your seat?

Didion: I’ve been trying to keep myself ignorant of films before going in, so that I have fewer expectations — you know how high expectations can ruin your experience of a film. But it was hard to escape the enticing notion of an Alien prequel, not to mention that the script was co-written by Damon Lindelof, one of the co-creators of the TV series Lost.

So I have to say, I enjoyed this movie! On the whole I walked out thinking it was worth the $11 to see this super-duper spectacle on the big screen, especially for the creepy anticipation and the horror elements. How about you, Mike: if someone trapped you in a corner at a cocktail party and asked, “Should I see Prometheus?” what would you say?

JMM: I believe one can recommend it despite the flaws, problems, issues, errors, and vague disappointment I had AFTERWARDS. Make any sense? Like it was two films. The one that played before my eyes, and the one that played in my head ever since.

Didion: I know exactly what you mean. So maybe we can try to figure out first why it seems to work so well going down, only to settle uneasily afterward. I had the same experience as you: I was completely absorbed by the progression of the tale — and I must say, by the spectacularly audacious question of whether these humans might discover their creators. Tell me: why does this film feel so well-constructed at least as you’re experiencing it?

JMM: The Ridley Scott DNA! The man is skilled in filling a cinematic canvas — of this there’s no doubt. I mean, if he’s the “engineer” of the film — wait, that’s not correct either — he’s the pilot — then it will look, sound and feel great. But it was relatively short — just a bit over two hours — and the questions are so big that the film really needed more time and depth.

Director Ridley Scott with star Noomi Rapace

Didion: I love the characterization that Scott “knows how to fill a canvas.” The film’s whole first half, the setup, is so terrifically creepy and methodically paced, and we have no idea where it’s going … fantastic. Sci-fi is so rich as a genre because unlike so many other narratives, the theme of exploring new worlds is one that can go anywhere — and Scott’s a master of vivid visual imagery.

Let me also say that Michael Fassbender is the real star of this film, even though he’s not the hero. As David, the ramrod-straight robot with a fixation for Peter O’Toole’s character in Lawrence of Arabia, he even dyes his hair blonde to replicate O’Toole’s and recites some of the best lines from that film, as if to practice being more cocksure and independent than he was intended to be. His character evokes the creepy robot from Alien (and maybe every other creepy robot in film), ultimately bringing up the film’s essential questions: why were we made? I’d like to offer that Fassbender’s acting goes far to make this film so creepy and watchable.

JMM: Fassbender’s performance was nothing short of amazing. Clearly I agree: he’s the real star of the film. However, I’d go further and say that he’s the only star in the film. There’s a fascination with him — he runs the ship without a soul to talk to for the two or three years it takes to get there — so he’s not bothered by the isolation. But yet he seems to relish the contact with the humans. So you feel he’s creepy and watchable. Interesting. Which of those two terms is more apt?

Didion: I couldn’t choose — he’s one of the best antagonists I’ve seen in film for a long time. He’s both creepy and watchable because despite being created to work for humans, and despite having no feelings, he has motives that most of the Prometheus’s crew doesn’t know about.

Here’s a problem I’m having: even just in our brief conversation so far, I can’t help but think about all the ways this film seems to be an apotheosis of Ridley Scott. David the robot reminds us of the robot in Alien, but it also reminds us of the ones in Blade Runner. Did I enjoy this film partly because I kept seeing mystic chords of connection to those earlier films? Did you think about this?

JMM: Actually, I kept thinking about Alien and not Blade Runner — maybe because Blade Runner was set on earth. But when I made comparisons with Alien they were negative or less enjoyable — because I invariably thought Alien was better.

Didion: Maybe it’s just been so long since I’ve seen Alien that I compared the two films less — and maybe as a result I found the parallels to be evocative rather than disappointing. Maybe it’s also because the questions he uses to frame the film are so large, so audacious. It felt like a film made by an old genius who can’t stop returning to the same themes.

I’ll confess my biggest disappointment: Noomi Rapace is fine, but not enough so. She actually received top billing for this role — a stunning achievement considering her relatively thin English-language career — but in the end she doesn’t have the charisma to take the bare bones of this character and flesh it out to take charge of this film as its protagonist.

JMM: Wow! You just dropped a couple of bombs on me. So here goes: I think this shouldn’t be thought of as Scott’s career capper. I think a sequel is in the future. A sequel to the prequel. I think that I do like the the concept of the old man returning to his favorite themes. I’ll hold off on Noomi for a moment. Let’s talk about the themes. Have you considered whether Christianity is a large theme in this film? First we have the opening (a form of sacrifice) then we have Shaw wanting to know of David where her cross is …. Am I looking for something that’s not there, or do you see something similar?

Didion: To be precise: the opening shot in the film shows a strange, human-like, highly muscled figure (an Engineer) drinking a mysterious black liquid, which destroys his body — and as he collapses into a massive waterfall, his body seems to seed the earth with DNA as a massive star ship leaves him behind. It’s a fascinating scene because we have no idea why it’s taking place. Meanwhile, several dozen millennia later, Elizabeth Shaw finds no conflict between her Christianity and her scientific pursuits. Even if she manages to prove that the Engineers created mankind, she points out that we will still not know who engineered them.

I think Scott inserted these themes to ask whether that initial sacrifice by the Engineer was a noble one or motivated by other darker reasons — and I didn’t find the quasi-Christian themes terribly overt. Maybe the most fundamentalist will complain about the film’s setup, but overall the film’s basic themes are more general than religious.

JMM: It could be a sacrifice or it could be something else. It could be the Prometheus of Greek mythology: cast out and punished. The figure seemed to be alone, left behind … why does he drink the fluid? These questions aren’t answered.

Then there’s Shaw’s attachment to the cross.

Didion: It felt to me as if Scott felt he could not avoid questions of God and/or the ultimate creator if he were going to make a film that asked questions about where we come from. Yet despite touching on those themes, and turning Elizabeth Shaw into a believer (a fact the robot David finds odd and fascinating, to the point of wanting to toy with it), the film seems primarily concerned with humans’ relationship to their more immediate creators, the Engineers. I wasn’t sure exactly what to make of Shaw’s faith — her attachment to the cross is as much evidence of her love for her father as for her religion, right? The cross becomes an almost superstitious symbol rather than what most Christians would believe: that the material symbol itself is less important than the faith behind it.

JMM: Yes, we can’t really make too much of the cross. It could be as easy as a family heirloom, or it could be more.

Back to Noomi as Shaw — you mentioned that she was fine, and she received top billing despite being less well-known for English-language viewers, but that she didn’t do more with the role. On this I disagree. I think she did as much as she could — meaning the problem wasn’t her performance but lack of character development. She starts as a scientist and ends up taking on a heroic role more like Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, yet we aren’t given enough information about her to care more the way we care about Weaver.

Did you notice in the opening on the ship, when the crew is gathered for Shaw and Charlie to explain the mission: Shaw describes finding the star constellations on early cave paintings, and a crew member asks, “Like a map?” and Shaw looks at Charlie first, then says, “No, more like an invitation.” I wondered why she looked at Charlie first. That’s what I meant that character wasn’t developed — seems like she could have answered directly. This was just the first flaw in the character rather than the actress.

Didion: You’ve put your finger on it: she’s portrayed relationally. For the first part of the film she’s quite oriented to her partner/ love interest, Charlie; we also learn how attached she was to her beloved father when she was a child, only to lose him to disease. We learn that she can’t bear children, and that this is a source of pain to her. She looks to Charlie during that scene because we need to see her as a character who is, perhaps, very smart but not possessed of the inner strength to face what’s coming.

Maybe my problem was that between the director’s and editor’s choices about later scenes, I never quite cathected to Shaw the way I did to all of Ridley Scott’s prior heroes, especially Ripley. Now, that’s a tall order, I realize — but despite watching Noomi undergo some spectacular feats later in the film, I just … well, didn’t care so much about her, as if she were always one of the secondary characters. A more masterful actor would have taken the reins and given the audience someone to cheer for.

Talk me down from the ledge, JMM! Am I being too harsh?

JMM: Sorry you’re out on that ledge — but there you will stay. At least about Rapace. I still contend that she was limited by the script. As you put it — she’s a secondary character. Also slotted into secondary roles are Janek and Vickers — the ship’s Captain, and the Weyland Corporation’s watchdog Vickers (Charlize Theron) — now there’s a one-note character we grow to hate quickly.

So in the end re: Noomi’s performance, I’ll leave you in your position, and I take the contra — I wasn’t disappointed.

*** Spoilers to follow! ***

*** The following is best for those who’ve already seen the film! ***

Didion: So, JMM, is it time to enter into the spoilers section of our conversation? Is it time to address some of those WTF? issues the film raises?

JMM: Thought you’d never ask!

I found myself disappointed by the fact that the film started with great questions but then degenerated into an action movie. So they land on that planet and head for that huge structure. Right away we begin to feel a sense of dread. I don’t think that this feeling was unexpected — in fact we were eager for it. Am I right? Did you grip your arm rests a little tighter as they headed out and we and the characters were facing the unknown?

Didion: Those scenes of exploring the planet’s mysterious structure — with its weird holographic ghosts and strange locked rooms that David seems to know how to open — it was all great, at least at first.

But then as the mysteries keep snowballing, they become convoluted. You’ve already put your finger on three of the film’s most serious limitations:

1. The film is too short to do justice to the plot
2. The film becomes an action film too abruptly
3. The film ultimately becomes simply a placeholder for the sequel, which means that a lot of its mysteries get postponed till the next film

I hate to sound as if I’m jerking our readers around on my attitude toward the film, but this is the truth: I both enjoyed the whole thing, and walked out saying, “Wait a second, WTF?” about all those weird incomplete plot points. I want a film that can just stand alone! I don’t like seeing films that spend the whole last reel setting up a franchise!

JMM: Bingo! You’ve got that right. Amen.

We have a plethora of inexplicable items that we could toss out there. I’ll start with one of minor importance yet which made no sense at all. Why did they mislead us about Weyland? We meet him early on via a holograph — and he says something like “As you watch this I’m long since dead” — only then he turns out to be alive — but only for a short period! That’s a real WTF for me.

Didion: Okay, I’m going to beg that you indulge me for a moment in waxing on a theme. Because this is the part of the film I found absolutely crazy:

This film isn’t just about the question of who made us, or why we are here. It ultimately seems to say that our creators had ambivalent or even hostile motives in creating us, and that they are working against us. And that means that the relationship between those “parents” and “children” becomes hostile, and they try to kill one another.

I’ve never seen so much patricide/ infanticide in a film. It’s crazy!

Which brings me back to your Weyland question: Weyland is the exemplar of the ambivalent creator. He’s David’s creator — and thus when he suddenly appears halfway through, it might help to explain some of the robot’s motives (is David messing around with all those mystery fluids in order to find an elixir of life for Weyland?). But he is also Meredith Vickers’ father — a fact that makes neither of them very happy and explains her icy coldness and antipathy for the whole venture. “A king has his reign, and then he dies. It’s inevitable,” she tells her father, with iciness in her eyes.

Okay, Mike, you’ve indulged me in my thematic wandering — are you willing to go there with me, or am I being a classic academic over-reader?

JMM: No, I’m not going there, and no, you’re not being a classic over-reader. Yes the killing of parents is a theme, and yes the killing of the children is also a theme.

These could be outshoots from Scott’s personal life. A falling out with his children or earlier with his own parents. Or it could be stuff tossed in without rhyme or reason. What does it amount to? So Weyland is Vickers’ father. So what? I thought it was totally unnecessary, and didn’t shock. I think that was the intent to shock, but it failed.

Second, David and the elixirs. If David wanted to extend Weyland’s life, why does he discuss (abstractly) the killing of parents? And on another level, why do the Engineers want to create a map/ invitation leading humans to their location? To come and be destroyed? Or to bring back to earth the very items that would lead to the destruction of humanity?

Maybe there are good Engineers and bad Engineers. The one living (in stasis) Engineer that they find, and resuscitate — what does he do after the brief conversation with David? rips off David’s head, then kills old man Weyland. At this point I was completely puzzled. These events came out of nowhere — and make little or no sense.

Didion: It’s crazy! it can take the story nowhere if humans and their Engineer creators are at war with one another!

Yet the theme of patricide/ infanticide is so prevalent — between David and Weyland, Weyland and Vickers, Shaw and her long-dead mother, Shaw and her evil monster spawn baby. When was the last time an abortion — a self-administered abortion! — became so prominent a plot point in a summer blockbuster? Damn! It’s crazily fascinating, though … especially if part of your appreciation for the film comes from its subtheme of Ridley Scott as a creator. This film evokes at least subtly so many of Scott’s other films that it seems to position him in one of those father roles — and yet with this manic plot it’s as if he’s creating the conditions for his own doom.

Let me ask about something far more specific: we find early on in the exploration of the planet’s big structure a whole lot of dead bodies of Engineers — bodies decapitated, as if undergoing a battle with other forces. Immediately nearby are the tanks full of an eery, oozing substance, as if that substance is itself an unbeatable foe for the Engineers. Yet it later turns out the Engineers were planning to take armories full of that ooze to Earth to kill off the very humans they created all those eons ago. Please explain.

JMM: Good Engineers and bad Engineers. That’s my guess. An internecine battle or disagreement amongst the Engineers themselves. I’ve no basis for that other than the bodies being piled up. Beyond that — who might the opponent be?

Backing up for a moment — you mentioned the self-administered abortion. Of course it was an abortion, yet when Shaw entered the facility, she asked for a Caesarean. That’s peculiar. Also peculiar was Shaw’s recovery from surgery — but we’ll leave that on the side for the moment.

Wasn’t Scott going around in circles in one sense — from the birth of humankind to the birth of the Alien at the end — and from who or what did that birth come from — was that the result of the snake like monster killing the Engineer — or was that a rape? The snake tentacle goes into the mouth of the Engineer which takes all the fight out of him. Does the Alien birth stem from that?

So we have a conception, an abortion, a birth, and a rape all in one film. Scott is one complicated dude, isn’t he?

Didion: Exactly! if we think of Prometheus as an origins tale, it is the nastiest, meanest, most morally ambivalent tale of origins ever!

The genealogy for the alien at the end was half ooze, half Charlie — impregnated into Shaw. Then Shaw’s aborted evil monster spawn baby mates with one of the Engineers, resulting in: Alien! Remember that creepy egg on the original poster for Alien? No eggs at all along the line here.

I’m convinced you’re right: perhaps a intra-Engineer war that took place many centuries earlier. But I’ve got one more WTF question: aren’t we supposed to think that the planet was left in the condition it was in order that humans — the Engineers’ “children” — ultimately return and set off that chain of dominoes that would lead to the destruction of humanity? Otherwise why the trail of clues — the cave paintings, the mysteriously locked rooms, the sole body trapped in stasis the same way Weyland’s body (and the rest of the crew) had been preserved for the long interstellar voyage?

This is why I find the open-endedness of the film’s conclusion so aggravating — I don’t want to have to wait another year or more to have the film’s most basic questions answered!

JMM: I’m betting that the sequel won’t answer the questions — there are too many of them. Think about the the timelines of the film: when Earth was just a planet without humans, the Engineers cast off one of their own to seed the planet. His DNA in the ocean would have evolved into humans over millennia. Then eons and eons later, when we humans were still in our caveman era, the Engineers came back (?) to visit the earliest human collectives in various places on Earth to issue the invitations.

Then millennia later humans attain the power to understand the invitations and reach the Engineers — how come there were no intervening visits? If the engineers on the planet were killed by aliens how come we didn’t meet any? The engineers have to have been killed by other engineers. Have to be.

But you are right that the open-endedness is frustrating and aggravating. I think also sloppy filmmaking — unless as you said — the purpose it to hype the sequel.

Didion: Argh! exactly. That whole two-visit question bothered me for hours afterward. (And by the way, JMM, you’ve now helped to raise my hackles all over again: if you’re right and the sequel has no answers, I’ll be furious! On the other hand, if it’s nothing but explanations I’ll also be annoyed, because I love the opaque themes and crazy action of a Ridley Scott film!)

I mentioned before it seems strange that the film’s kooky/ nonsensical plotting and ugly, patricidal origins story didn’t detract from my enjoyment of it as I watched — it only started to bug me as we walked out (and later, obviously). And I think it’s because the film’s CGI is so good. Know what I liked the best? David’s little computerized airborne probes that create a 3D architectural plan of the structure remotely. I just geeked out during those scenes.

JMM: The technical aspects of the film were superb. That’s why we liked the film as we watched — the visuals precluded thinking about its problems — or postponed them. But even those probes were just Scott’s homage to The Matrix, just as he paid tribute to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In The Matrix, there were the probes — but they were mechanical. In 2001 we had the transition — the ape throws the bone in the air, and it becomes a space ship. Here we had the Engineers’ DNA launched into the ocean which leads us to Shaw in the caves. Even the old man Weyland connoted the aged Keir Dullea character from 2001. Paying homage to excellent films of the past just added to the allure of this film. Speaking of exceptional — what else did you like?

Didion: This film brought together two of my favorite things to watch in film: the “don’t go into the haunted house!” kind of storyline, as they enter the structure and encounter the ghostlike apparitions of the now-dead Engineers; and the “last man standing” theme that was so obvious in Alien but also in various westerns and other sci-fi movies. Those earliest scenes of exploring the labyrinthian structure are so vivid and wonderful. And from the very beginning you meet the ship’s crew and start to wonder in what order will they fall — will the characters engage in battle against one another? which ones will turn out to be cowards? LOVE the creepy anticipation of those dual themes.

How about you, JMM? What else worked for you — or, conversely, didn’t work?

JMM: I loved the heroic captain who knew what he had to do. Janek was at once stereotypical and yet he wasn’t just another good guy who gave up his life to save the world. I liked Charlize Theron’s work in the film but detested the character.

But you know what? I wanted to be terrified way more than we actually were. Alien was unsurpassed in terms of terror when it was released, and still is. Prometheus isn’t terrifying at all. We get a sense of dread and we know that bad stuff will happen. But it really isn’t that scary is it? Wriggling worms on the floor of the rooms with the storage containers. Sticky substances? Even at the end, the birth of the xenomorph which was the beginning of the Alien monster we saw thirty three years ago for the first time seemed not as terrifying as we knew what it would become.

But here is the one thing that was truly terrifying. We knew David would poison Charlie. And we had to watch it happen without knowing why, since David’s motives were still somewhat unknown at the time — this was very scary. With that move he became a character to fear, but we didn’t know the reason? What is your take on that?

Didion: You’re probably right that in terms of terror, we got more mileage out of anticipation than we did in scary battle scenes. The film had more gross-out horror than thrills — I mean, that abortion scene! Which is entirely appropriate given what we know about these monsters and their eagerness to kill humans in order to implant their creepy monster babies.

That’s perhaps why David becomes such a pivotal character in the film. Why does he do it? It’s an impossible question to answer if we can believe him that he feels no human emotions. I read it as an issue of his being loyal to his creator, Weyland: David needs someone to experiment on as he searches for a means of keeping Weyland alive, and Charlie is convenient (and also not crucial to the crew of the ship). David’s utter moral ambivalence is riveting.

I love it that you brought up Janek, played nicely by the charismatic British actor Idris Elba. At some point early on I paused in watching the film and thought, every single one of these major actors is affecting a false accent!

Charlize Theron (South African) affects American accent

Noomi Rapace (Swedish) affects British accent

Michael Fassbender (Irish) affects very clipped British accent

Idris Elba (British) affects Southern US accent

Guy Pearce (Australian) affects American accent

Which, to be honest, gives the whole thing a very ersatz vibe!

But now that I’m making comments like this, I’m wondering whether it’s time to wrap up. JMM, do you have any final thoughts, quips, nifty conclusions? You’re clearly better-versed in the Ridley Scott/ sci-fi genre than I am!

JMM: Gee thanks. Now I have to be nifty? You do a great job of discussing the impact of the characters, and you’ve covered a lot of territory in examining the film’s strengths and weaknesses.

Okay back to nifty — hmm — I think I’ll reference my early remark about Ridley Scott being an artiste in the sense of filling up a cinematic canvas. However the downside of this is the craziness of the story. It takes me back to something I mentioned earlier — that this felt like two films in one, the one that unfolded as we watched, and the one we thought about afterward. I believe we could spend hours more picking the film apart, and I also believe that we could spend hours more discussing the things we liked in the film.

But we won’t. I’m ending my part of this talk by thanking you, and by thanking AMC for letting me see the film for six bucks on Friday morning. My final thought is that the film disappointed me as well as gave me two hours of fun.

Didion: I agree! many thanks, JMM. This chat reminds me that Ridley Scott’s biggest questions — which I can sum up glibly as, who’s your daddy? and why are we here? — may not be answered by Prometheus, but they’re always going to be interesting. And no one is left chained to a rock to have his liver eaten by an eagle — so hey, why not spend two hours enjoying the thrill ride?

“The Hunger Games” (2012): do you have to love the book to love the film?

I was getting a haircut the other day, and the woman sitting next to me spoke about her reluctance to see The Hunger Games. “I just hate gorey movies,” she explained. “And the idea of children eating other children grosses me out.”

“They don’t eat one another!” I objected. “They’re forced to kill one another as part of a state-run reality TV show in a dystopian future!”

Okay, this is kind of a big difference, eating vs. merely killing one another — and for squeamish readers I can assure you that the gore factor is fairly low considering the subject matter. It’s strangely difficult to explain what made the books so compelling. Yet compelling they are: I’m pretty sure my set of books ricocheted amongst 9 different friends over the course of a 4-month period, each time resulting in late-night emails from those friends that said, “OMG The Hunger Games!”

Chalk it up in part to a powerful, driving narrative and a terrific central character in Katniss Everdeen. To quickly sum up the plot, Katniss has grown up in one of the nation’s poorest districts — so poor, in fact, that she and her best friend Gael have taught themselves to poach animals from the off-limits woods near home. Without her skills with a bow and arrow, setting traps, and scavenging for berries and other foods, her family would have starved long ago.

But then the annual Hunger Games begins. Long ago the nation’s 12 districts rebelled against the capital and when the federal government regained control, it instituted these “games.” Two children, a boy and girl, are chosen randomly from each district to compete against each other in a fantasy wilderness arena until only one is left alive. That battle is projected to every TV with the notion that it will somehow bring the nation together as they root for and celebrate the winner. But it also demands that the “tributes” make themselves TV-ready and appealing even as they kill one another or simply fight to survive — because the richest or most charismatic can get special gifts throughout the course of the games from sponsors who might tilt the balance between life and death with a packet of medicine, matches, or food. When Katniss is chosen alongside a baker’s son named Peeta, she is forced out of her “anything to survive” mentality, and must decide how much she’s willing to play the TV game.

Spoilers ahoy as you proceed!

As the blogger JustMeMike and I sat down to discuss the film, my first question to him is, have you read the books? and does the film seem to be the compelling document that I’ve described about the books?

JustMeMike: Thanks for the brief intro and plot outline. I only bought the book this past Thursday and did my utmost to keep it closed. I brought it with me on my trip to New York, but I should have left it home, as I never opened it on either flight. I will admit to reading the first three pages before I left. So at most, I went in with scant knowledge. So go right ahead, and call me a noob.

Now that I’ve seen the film, I will readily agree that it is compelling, and that I’m 100% certain that I will go through the rest of the books that follow in the series — asap.

Since you’ve read the book, and I haven’t — can you give me a sense of how the film and book compare?

Didion: That might wind up being the most talked-about subject of the day! And that’s too bad, since I’d theoretically like to think of this solely as a film, but let’s face it: I can’t.

I’d say two main things. First, I walked out feeling impressed that the film had done such a great job of covering a lot of ground in the books — my partner and I were really happy about the film overall. I especially thought Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss was just amazing — and I’d been skeptical, as she’s clearly a curvy 22-year-old, whereas Katniss is a skinny, half-starved 15-year-old.

I do have one criticism comparing the two (and this is my second point). For me, the most moving thing about the books was that Katniss agonizes about appealing to TV viewers; she’s spent her whole life feeling defensive and protective of her family, so she hates smiling and pretending to like Peeta in order to gain TV fans. I felt the film gave short shrift to that storyline. Yet again, I still feel satisfied with the movie overall.

JustMeMike: Ok — my question was really too broad for a short answer or even a longish one. But I was lost about the coal mining aspect of the Seam. The Capital seemed so advanced and Katniss’s area seemed so deprived. How does the Capital have super technology and yet there are still functioning coal mines?

Didion: The future imagined in the book is one in which many of the “districts” (states) are poor and conduct basic services on behalf of the few richest districts and the Capital. Her district mines coal; other raise wheat or whatever and are just about as poor.

So part of what the book does is to juxtapose the super-rich, superficial people in the capital of Panem (there’s a Latin phrase, panem et circenses, that means “bread and circuses”; capturing its superficiality and its likeness to Rome before the fall) with the incredibly poor, manipulated citizens of faraway districts like Katniss’s. When she gets to the capital and sees everyone with their elaborate clothes and makeup and plastic surgeries, it’s like a freak show to someone who couldn’t afford to buy bread.JMM: Okay, I’d like to talk about Katniss. What impressed me most was her strength before the games or even before the Reaping. She was the protector, the provider, and at the core of her family. Yet as the Hunger Games process begins she seems a bit weak at first but it’s only temporary. She is simply a rock going forward. I simply loved that part of her.

Didion: Doesn’t she make a terrific heroine? Especially in our age of Iron Man and Spider-Man and so on — without a single super-hero skill or supernatural gift, Katniss has been forced by circumstance into obtaining precisely some of the skills she’d need to succeed at the games.

Lawrence does a great job with this role. There were a couple of strange moments that perhaps make best sense vis-à-vis the book, but she made me cry. Fantastic. Did you think she managed to be her own person?JMM: I thought she went beyond gender. I think that if you think of the sister Prim, who was weak and timid from the beginning — then Katniss seemed even stronger. But what I meant was that it was her youth and the strength of her will and determination that was so impressive. My point is that if Katniss had been a boy with those same qualities, the film would have worked just as well. Yet, I was most glad that Katniss wasn’t a boy.

In fact, I didn’t much care for Peeta at the beginning, and I had no sense of what he would reveal later on.

Didion: Oh, that’s interesting — “beyond gender.” I’m not sure I’d go that far. I think there’s a part of me who sees a female form with a bow and arrow and it’s such a direct reference to Diana that I can’t help but think about all those classical myths. But you’re so right that she embodies a kind of strength that goes beyond typical representations of women in film.

Obviously the book takes a lot longer in telling the story of the Games, and during that time Katniss wrestles with the job of killing other kids. You see a lot less of that here. Ultimately she kills, what, one kid? the one who kills Rue? I wonder if perhaps her reluctance to kill also makes her seem more humane/feminine in the books.

Argh, I hate to keep making reference to the books, but Peeta was quite hate-able at first and then becomes a total mensch. Didn’t quite play out fully satisfactorily here, but oh well.

JMM: Of course he turned himself into something to be admired. But backing up a bit — the reference to Diana from mythology is correct but it might not fit all the viewers of the film. I watched the film and didn’t go there myself.

I think that since I hadn’t read the book, and came to the film without that background — I didn’t have the sense of her unwillingness to kill. In fact I thought that she bought into Haymitch’s strategy right away. He told her to run the other way — don’t go near the Cornucopia — so she was in a defensive mode from the jump. Sure enough, half of the Game’s participants were seemingly slaughtered immediately.  When she did kill it was also an act of self defense — someone rushed her position. Didion: So I’m curious, JMM, since you hadn’t read the books, did you see important themes coming through in the film? Or does it just seem like a really great action film?

I ask because the book lends itself easily to metaphorical readings. I have now referred many times to the tenure process for young academics as The Hunger Games. And grad school. But when I watched the film I was so nervous about it doing something “wrong,” that I’m not sure I have the wherewithal to tell whether the film throws itself open to multiple readings like that.

JMM: Of course it is an action film, but it’s clearly more. It is a cautionary tale, a tale of how consumption and inequalities could lead to rebellion, and I don’t believe that it was submerged or clouded over in the film. The President made it clear that the games were both a reality show as well as a way of keeping social control. By televising the Games, and by making the 24 tributes look and act their best (to attract sponsor support as well as fan interest) made everyone a participant. By having a rooting interest or a favorite — that meant tacit support of the system which really means that the Games were just another way to control the people. Didion: That’s a relief — because I think the broader meanings of the story are one of the reasons so many people refer to this as a phenomenon, something broader than just a film.

When I first read it, the deep fears and distrust of the government at Panem almost made me wonder whether this book was going to be a Tea Party or Libertarian favorite. But as the Games progress there’s a fascinating progressive tale — all those viewers in other districts get so attached to a couple of the tributes, like Katniss, that they start riots when the Games seem to tilt against them. Fascinating during an election year, eh?

So I’ve got another question for you: apparently the filmmaker did a lot of work to ensure a PG-13 rating (by not putting much gory detail into the killing scenes, for example) — even the scenes of hand-to-hand combat are quite fuzzy and oblique — such that kids might attend in greater numbers. But the fact is, this is a pretty dark tale even if you don’t see guts spraying all over the screen. Is this one of those cases in which parents should be wary of taking their kids to see it, even if their kids loved the books? (I’m remembering our conversation about the rape scene in Girl With the Dragon Tattoo here.)
JMM: No I don’t see parental concern arising at all. I’m an adult, and I just bought the book 4 days ago. Which means that 25 million books were sold before I bought mine. I think that in most family situations, the parents became aware of the books after their children did.

As for the lack of gore — I rather liked that. I don’t think the film needed a drop of blood except after the fact. We didn’t see the spear hit Rue, but instead saw what had happened only after the fact — and that worked fine for me.

But getting to the last part of the your reply — for sure it is a dark tale. What surprised me most was that a few of the characters like Rue and a few smaller boys seemingly had no chance at all. They were slaughtered seconds into Games. How was it that there were no volunteers to protect them?
Didion: That’s one of the most brutal and depressing parts of the book — who in his/her right mind would volunteer for something that means you’ve got a 1 in 24 chance of surviving? Some of the previous Games were particularly sadistic; one was set in a desert where no one could find any water and virtually everyone died of thirst within 24 hours. So if you’re poor and skinny and all your peer-age kids are skinny too, who’s going to volunteer?

But then there are the richer districts (as the film teaches us) who train their children from the earliest ages to be ridiculously powerful and skilled so they might win — and thereby bring back food and a certain degree of riches to their districts. No volunteers needed from districts where everyone looks like Cato.

Katniss’s love for her sister is the one true passion she feels for another human. It’s that love that makes her sacrifice herself.
JMM: Yet we heard in both Effie’s speech in District 12 as well as the President’s speech at the Games, talk of their “sacrifice.” So Katniss was the only one who would change places and enter the Games as a volunteer tribute. None of the other random selectees had that happen. I’m not objecting to Katniss being the heroic girl who protects her weaker and younger sister — I just thought other districts might have had similar events. From the author’s perspective, Is it possible that Katniss volunteered as a way or reason than to make her more ideal and heroic. On the other hand, maybe the sacrifice of the young and the weak would not be as significant as when a vibrant 17 year-old was the one to go…

Didion: Oh, I see what you’re saying. I think it’s just a function of Katniss living in District 12, and they choose the tributes from that District last.

So I’ve got another question for you. I sat next to a couple of very, very over-caffeinated girls (or were they just high on too much sugar?) who had an enormous debate before the film about whether Peeta or Gael was best. In fact, my 12-year-old TX neighbor had a t-shirt that read TEAM GAEL. After the film, these girls walked out surrounding themselves with a cloud of “OH MY GAAAWWWDD”s and “HE WAS SOOOO GORGEOUS”s. (Indeed, the dude who played Gael seems to have been created in a test tube by scientists from Tiger Beat magazine.)
But I liked the fact that the film scaled back on the lovey-dovey stuff — as the book did, I thought. Did you feel that the story was going to devolve into a story of “torn between two lovers”? Or was the love interest stuff less significant? You mentioned that you liked the way the Peeta character developed; does he seem like romantic hero material for the long haul (aka, 4 projected films altogether)?

JMM:  I don’t even want to think about Peeta in 4 more films (at least right now). Not having read the book, I was shocked when right at the outset (after the mass killings at the Cornucopia) that Peeta had aligned himself with the biggest and strongest kids. Not that he joined them, but that they took him in.

As far as the crowd of 12 year olds who were gaga over the male leads — I had the opposite experience. I sat next to some older guy who got up and headed for parts unknown (but easily guessed at) three times during the show.

Now I have a question for you: For about the first twenty minutes or so, I watched and I wasn’t moved by anything — but when when the clock announced thirty seconds to go, and Katniss stepped onto the pedestal — at that precise moment I felt my pulse quicken, and my heart raced. It was so electric a moment for me physically that I could not fail to notice it. Did you have a precise moment which gave you a strong kickstart?
Didion: I probably started getting jittery when they started training while in the capital. I quite liked the way the film handled the way each of the kids tries to adjudge the others, show them up, etc. I quite liked the way they showed Katniss and Peeta arriving in the stadium with their costumes on fire (even though, honestly, that fire looked like pretty cheap CGI).

But yeah, the beginning of the Games ratchets everything up when everyone’s life is on the line. That initial slaughter at the Cornucopia is pretty gritty. So are the fireballs that send Katniss back into the area where the other tributes are.
The film is also full of prominent character actors — from Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, the designer; Woody Harrelson as Haymitch; Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, and so on — what did you think of them?

JMM:  When we first meet Woody’s Haymitch, he seems dissolute, like a man who cannot escape a terrible past — much like the Tom Cruise character Nathan Algren in The Last Samurai. Yet, seemingly, that was abandoned rather quickly. He took his role of advisor quite seriously. So why was he presented initially like a guy who didn’t care much about anything except where was his next drink coming from?
Didion: In the 75-year history of the Games, Katniss’s district has only had one winner — Haymitch. And now he’s a drunken, mean-spirited lout. You’re right that he’s a difficult character to fathom, and even more so in the books. You sort of intuit that the Games did this to him; he’s like a soldier with PTSD.

How about any of the other characters — Donald Sutherland as the very scary President, or that guy with the flame-like facial hair who did the behind-the-scenes work on creating the Arena?

JMM: Thought you’d never ask. Strangely enough Sutherland’s scariness wasn’t on his surface — it was his attitudes below his grandfatherly looking exterior. I didn’t care for Seneca but his role was pivotal no matter what kind of fancy beard he sported. In fact I was distressed when I realized that he and his staff were doing more than just monitoring and tracking — I was so surprised when he and the staff woman decided to send in the dogs. I thought that made the whole aspect of the games a bit false. I literally wanted Katniss to win a fair game. But the game was anything but fair. Seneca and company were actively participating in the creation of circumstances to alter the outcome. And that’s not even mentioning the rules changes.

I did rather like Stanley Tucci’s Caesar Flickerman character. He was so manipulative. That blue hair — those teeth — quite scary to me.

Didion: You have usefully fallen straight into what I was leading up to: the wonder that is Stanley Tucci. I suspect that his role is unusually generous vis-a-vis the roles of Haymitch, Cinna et als — but every time he appeared on-screen I just grinned and thought, ahh, I could look at that man hamming it up all day! There are a couple of scenes in which he’s framed by multiple screens, each of which is projecting his face with a slightly different self-serving and/or grinning expressions, and it was all good. He also has an eerily insidious quality, as if he’s got his own agenda beyond his state-appointed role. Fabulous!
JMM:  Maybe he was just thrilled by being paid to talk about the Games. Not bad work if you can get it.

Interesting comment — you can answer by referencing the book — was the character the ham, or the actor doing the hamming?

Didion: No, this seemed accurate to the way the book characterized him — it just seems we got a lot more Stanley than Haymitch, who was a much more crucial character in the book.

Okay, I have a confession (and this allows me to take one big step backward to look at the big picture here): it’s making me slightly depressed that you’ve got so many questions about the storyline, because I fear this returns me to one of my initial questions about whether this film is for True Believers (readers) like me and not newbies. The film version glosses over so much detail/context — and thank god, right? it would’ve been two times longer otherwise — that one feels a little lost in the shuffle.

You’re the perfect viewer in this respect: tell me, how would you ultimately rate the film on its own terms? Because as a reader (and using your own 5-star ranking system), I would give it a solid 4 stars; if I were grading it as an undergraduate paper, I’d give it a solid 86%. Of course, I can be a tough grader.
JMM: Great question. We approached this film from 180 degrees of difference. You read all three books, and I read none. So you have built-in reference points that I don’t. My questions about the film are not just about storylines or plot points. I gather that you’re saying you liked the film but won’t give it top marks.

I’d likely rate it similarly. But I think I have more gripes about the technical side than the gaps in the story. For example I hated the jittery, handheld effects whenever director Gary Ross showed the crowds.

Do you have any gripes about how they showed us the story?
Didion: I tried to avoid listening to any reviews of the film before seeing it, but the one I did catch called Ross a “hack” for the hand-held camerawork. So perhaps I went in fretting that it would look sloppy — and you know how going in with low expectations can lead you to like a film more than you’d expected.

Maybe I’m being unimaginative here, but the fact that Ross was trying very hard to maintain his PG-13 rating was always on my mind. The hand-held camera and the blurred, kinetic fight scenes were disorienting, but they conveyed the hellishness of those fights and those killings without showing explicit blood & guts. I don’t want to defend this as an artistic triumph by any means, but I wonder if maybe the real enemy is the US’s ratings system that forced Ross into making such choices in order to make sure that the book’s most loyal teen readers could see the film without their parents along. Or is there a better way of doing it?

JMM: I agree that he had to help sell the tickets – and that meant making sure the 13 and ups could go by themselves. And I’m okay with it because I understand it. Yeah, I would have like it better if there had been more explicit violence…but I don’t think that was the reason for giving this a 4 instead of a 5, or giving it a B+ rather than an A.

The story is really about Katniss’s heroic and brave character. We knew she would emerge victorious. But how she got there was not the key feature of the film. In fact when she first took to the high ground (up in a tree) I knew she’d wait for the action to come to her. And I was fine with it: more chances to have quality time with her. Even when she did nothing, her mind was still so alert. She was so admirable, and positive. That’s why the books sold so well, and why the film will also sell.

Think about it. We got no blood and yet I would have not missed this film for anything. I would have crawled to the theater if necessary. So basically, the flaws can be laid at the feet of the director and editor. That’s where I’m placing my blame for an 86 or a B+, or a 4.0 rating.
Didion: This is a perfect opportunity for me to ask my two final questions — but not before teasing you for your great line: “Think about it. We got no blood and yet I would not have missed this film for anything.” I like the way you sound like a horror film aficionado here, when in fact I know for certain that you have a wide appetite for many kinds of film, including the sweet and bloodless!

First question: setting aside the possibility that David Fincher would pick up this franchise and make a couple of brilliant films a la Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is Ross’s problem inherent to the struggle of bringing a rich and dynamic book to the screen? Or do you think his directing choices and the editor’s cuts made the film look amateurish?

And last, you say you would have crawled to the theater (cheers to that, as I saw it on opening day): this film made a record $155 million on opening weekend. That set a new all-time record for a non-sequel, and marked it as the 3rd most lucrative opening weekend of all time. Meanwhile, it also made the most money on opening day ever for a non-sequel and the most money for a midnight premiere of a non-sequel (it ranks 5th and 7th overall, respectively, in those categories amongst films that are sequels). This film made money.

But what do you expect for the long haul? Will this film still be making money down the line, and for The Hunger Games II?
JMM: I was wondering when that last question would emerge…

First, as you said, I like many kinds of films but there is one exception  – and that would be horror films. I don’t think Ross’s work in this film was amateurish, but yes certainly, some directorial choices were weak.

As to whether it’ll make money down the line, or in the long haul. Yup. I think I see a Potterish future for The Hunger Games and its sequels.

My last question: the way the story played out, and the the way that the film was designed that by film’s end, there only two likeable characters. Katniss and Peeta. Obviously this is the work of the author, Suzanne Collins. But do you think this was fair? Did you feel manipulated?

Didion: Quick Q: do you mean that other likeable characters like Rue are all dead?

JMM: I didn’t mean it that way. To rephrase: excepting Cinna and Rue, who else was likable and was that fair to the readers/viewers?
Didion: I kind of loved Rue, and I would have liked even a teensy bit more of some of the other Hunger Games tributes whom Katniss fears but respects (like Cato).

But you know what? I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with your question — because it points out to me how much this is really the tale of a girl whose early life has already been hard, and who gets put into the most terrifying situation possible. We can’t help but root for someone who’s so determined to survive — but the book being told in Katniss’s voice also makes it a somewhat self-centered tale. And when I say self-centered I don’t mean to sound dismissive in the least — any tale told in the first person would be focused on one’s own emotional responses to horrible situations.

So ultimately the film rests on who they got to play Katniss. And here we come back to the fact that Lawrence nails the role. Peeta comes through as a very strong secondary character by the end; perhaps even more so because he has an almost feminine set of weaknesses when it comes to survival (I mean, he makes his cake-decorating skills work for him!) but he has a stronger sense of self, particularly in the books.

So in the end, this is a film that really is all about Katniss — and to a lesser degree about developing a Peeta who’ll get stronger as the films unfold.

Does that answer your question, or just raise new ones?

JMM: I’m satisfied with the answer. This is just the first film. As for the perspective of Katniss telling the story so it would carry the first person construct – I believe I read that Collins intended this to be a 3rd person narrative in the outlining and planning, but when her fingers met the keyboard it came out differently. I forgot one thing I meant to say – I said I would have crawled to the theater – want to know why? Because I wanted to be able to have this discussion – and that required me to see the film!

Didion: Aw, man — you mean you weren’t as excited as I was in anticipation?

JMM: Sure I wanted to see it – but I’ll bet, if it could be quantified in any way – that I couldn’t have matched you anticipatory-wise. I’ll let you have the honor of the final words.

Didion: Here’s my final thought: I’m so intrigued by your idea that the director is the reason for my giving the film a B+ that I hope this franchise takes a cue from the Potter empire: those films got infinitely better when they hired Alfonso Cuarón to do the third film. So I hope the producers hire someone more visionary to do the next one.

But speaking as a major fan of the books, I was IMPRESSED with the film, and particularly with Lawrence’s Katniss. My only hope is that Jennifer Lawrence continues to get Winter’s Bone-style art-house roles as well. I can hardly wait to see the next installment of The Hunger Games.

JMM, I can’t tell you what fun it is to chat about these movies with you! Let’s keep our eyes on the summer schedule as it becomes clear, and plan another one of these conversations. And I look forward to hearing what other viewers think of The Hunger Games.

JMM: Thank you so much. I do love this chatting about films with you.

Didion: One more thought: don’t you think it would be fun to review a film that we both hate? I’d love to do a pile-on.

JMM: Now that would be a novel idea. A pile-on. We’ll see. Cheers.

“Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (2011): A pre-holiday chat about a non-holiday thriller

There are two kinds of movies in the theaters right now: the highbrow ones seeking out Oscar nods, and the heartwarming Christmas ones.

Then there’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. In one early scene, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) greets Mikael (Daniel Craig) while wearing a t-shirt that says, FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCK.

So with that in mind, perhaps you won’t be surprised that I ♡ GWTDT. The real question is, how did our friend JustMeMike feel about it?

JMM: Like you, I find Lisbeth compelling. At the same time, I’m a bit scared of her. She is fierce, as was Noomi in the same role. That comes from knowing what she’s capable of. But while Lisbeth has that don’t fuck with me attitude, much of the time, she appears to be drawing herself back in, like a turtle might do.

Didion,  I knew you be all over this one, which was probably why we agreed to do a joint review/discussion on this film all the way back in September, knowing it would be released just before Christmas.

To set some background, let’s briefly discuss how we independently came to the Stieg Larsson books and films.

I kind of fell into them by accident. In early November of 2010, I somehow lost the book I was reading in Riomaggiore — in Italy’s Cinque Terre area. The next day, back in Milan, I went to the American Bookstore to buy another copy of Nelson DeMille’s The Lion. Only they didn’t have it. The lady who ran the shop asked if I had read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I hadn’t, so I took her advice. Within the following six weeks , I’d read all three books, and have since seen all three of the Swedish language films made from the books about seven times. So I was very eager to see this brand new version directed by David Fincher. How about you?

Didion: I’d never even heard of them when one of my best friends sent me a copy back during maybe February of 2009 — she’d read it while in Europe, long before it was released in the US, and knew that we shared a penchant for Scandinavian crime stuff. We now share an unholy love of Lisbeth Salander, one of the most unexpected and great heroines of recent history.

JMM: Back to the present. I saw the 7:00 show on Tuesday night. This was the opening night in Sarasota. The theater was about 90% filled. When did you see it and how was the crowd?

Didion: Just the opposite! We raced to the theater on Wednesday the 21st for the 7:30pm show, and when we walked into the theater 15 minutes early there was one guy — ONE! — who’d beaten us. By the time the film started there were maybe 12 or 15 people in a theater that probably holds 300. (Let me say: this was a very happy 12 people.)

JMM: My brother even sent me a survey a few days ago that stated that 75% of the women that were asked said they weren’t eager to see the film. Well then, there are reasons for that which we might explore later. Let’s look at a few headline reactions from some well known or outspoken critics before we get into the particulars. Roger Ebert wrote, “Hey girl, that’s a cool dragon tattoo”. A.O. Scott wrote for the New York Times, “Tattooed Heroine Metes Out Slick, Punitive Violence”. Kenneth Turan for the LA Times wrote, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is too frigid.” One more — Kyle Smith for the New York Post called the film, “Rubbish”. So Didion, do you have a headline in mind?

Didion: How about, The Perfect, Laconic, Tattooed Heroine For Our Sins. First reactions: Rooney Mara was terrific and made this part her own; David Fincher teaches all filmmakers a lesson here in how to translate a sprawling book for the screen; and the scenery was spectacular. I’ve got some quibbles, but on the whole I was entranced. I don’t know what Smith & Turan are talking about.

I’m the worst of all possible viewers: I know the books really well; I loved the first Swedish film; I thought Noomi Rapace was amazing in the role. Mara and Fincher were really going to have to knock my socks off to please me. (My socks: knocked off.) Now I’m thinking that the Swedish film will pale in comparison when I see it again.

How about you? First reactions?

JustMeMike: Worst possible viewer? I would think just the opposite about you. Your experience would be an asset. At least that’s how I read Fincher’s intentions. My first reaction or headline? Loved It But Not More Than the Original.

Didion: Walking in, the first thing I wanted to know was whether I’d like Mara as Lisbeth, having loved Noomi Rapace in the role so much. Rapace’s black eyes did a lot of great work for her — she was so clearly angry. Mara has a little-girl face with big bluish/grey eyes, which made me fret Fincher would turn her into Little Girl Lost. But actually she truer to the Lisbeth of the books: a kind of emotionless, blank expression, which reads to some people as if she’s autistic. And she’s also capable of incredibly vicious, economical violence when necessary.So I thought Mara was fabulous. What did you think of Daniel Craig as Mikael?

JMM: In the featurette about the film, Fincher called the Blomkvist character middle aged. I thought that Craig did not appear as middle-aged as did the Swedish actor, Michael Nyqvist. But that wasn’t a negative. Craig seemed less vulnerable than Nyqvist. He was slimmer, and seemed tougher physically even though he didn’t play the role that way.

Didion: …and Craig took his shirt off far too often?

JMM: Well then, far too often? Not really. He did have the body for it.

Didion: I kept thinking of a silly line from the film Galaxy Quest in which one of the side characters says dryly to the Capt. Kirk-type lead, “I see you got your shirt off.”

I’m with you on Craig as a far more glamorous Mikael. Which I didn’t mind eye-candy-wise but I don’t know about his acting choices in certain spots, either. I liked Nyqvist in the role much better.

JMM: Bingo! My take is that between Craig and Fincher — they decided to make Mara’s Lisbeth the star. In fact Fincher stated that while Lisbeth begins as a secondary character, she quickly rushes to the forefront of the movie even though Craig’s character is the lead actor (story-wise).

Didion: Okay, can I burble for a moment? There are a couple of things I thought were done really well and which need to be highlighted. Spoilers ahoy! If you don’t want to know about plot details, get your butt off NOW.

First, the rape scene. And lordy, how I hate a rape scene. I have a whole series of rants about how they should be eliminated from film altogether — the gratuitousness of the violence, the vision of a helpless woman…don’t even get me started.

JMM: Sorry — you started this one yourself, but go for it —

Didion: So how does a director do this one, which is absolutely necessary to the story? The scene in the Swedish version was hard to watch, not less for Lisbeth’s painful walk home after being victimized.

I thought this one was handled really well — considering. (Maybe I was dreading it, so it didn’t seem as bad once I saw it?) It shows Lisbeth writhing around on the bed and doesn’t underplay the violence in the least. But it also doesn’t feel as gratuitously detailed and humiliating as the Swedish original, or the rape/violence in some other films like Monster or Boys Don’t Cry. So kudos to Fincher for including it in a way that moves the story along to Lisbeth’s quick and utterly satisfying revenge (ahhh, a good revenge scene).

And second (quickly): this film did a fabulous job of highlighting what was so great in the book — a crazy fascinating mystery. The story is always front & center in this film.
JMM: Well, as for the rape scene — Fincher gave us a built in break — which allowed us to prepare ourselves. For those unfamiliar with the story it was key — and for those of us who knew what was coming it was still an excellent decision. After Bjurman slaps the first handcuff on, Fincher backs the camera out of the room, even has the door closed. So we don’t see the real violence needed to get her on the bed and completely shackled. I thought that was a marvelous choice.

Didion: And another thing: this film did a fabulous job of telling a feminist tale. It’s a story about how she saves him. And that’s after she saves herself after being raped. The ending is all about Lisbeth racing off to rescue Mikael, who’s been chained up by the bad guy.

I could probably count on one hand the number of movies where the girl saves the guy (in most of them, she doesn’t even help). So hooray for GWTDT.

My quibble: the film undermines that a bit at the very end by having Lisbeth appear to get jealous of Mikael’s relationship with his editor (Robin Wright). Which is an odd time to put that in, and different enough from the book that I bristled a bit.
JMM: Hold on a bit — you lost me. You referenced how “she saves herself after being raped”. Not right after — it took a while for the revenge scene to come. But as for the girl saving the guy — you’re right on that score. But I’ve a small quibble about how that was set up.

I believe in the original, Lisbeth didn’t set up the spy-cams until after Mikael was shot — when they realized how dangerous this really was. In Fincher’s version — she had the spy-cams already set up when he stumbles back in after nearly being killed.

As for Lisbeth’s jealously at the end — this is a matter of interpretation, no? I read it differently. I thought that Lisbeth saw them and thought he’s moved on, so I guess I have to as well. So she tossed the leather jacket she’d bought into the trash, and rode off. Question is this a clue that makes one think there will be a sequel?

Didion: I wondered that too. I haven’t heard anything either way (and IMDB doesn’t list them on Fincher’s page). If I were Fincher, I don’t think I’d want to commit to the whole series, especially since Lisbeth kind of becomes more unknowable by the 3rd.

But here’s another gushing bit of praise: Christopher Plummer. This is the second great role I’ve seen him in this year (last summer’s Beginners). As the head of the nightmarish Vanger clan and the one who hires Mikael to figure out the mystery, he’s both funny and ominous about the details of the family history. It wasn’t necessarily a big role for him, but I thought he nailed it. Actually, considering how few Swedish actors they used — Stellan Skårsgard was the only major one — everyone, including Robin Wright, looked satisfyingly Swedish to my American eyes.

JMM: Okay — let me catch my breath for a second and gather my thoughts …. okay — First I agree that Fincher, Craig and Mara would be wrong to do sequels. Even though I’d love to see them again. But I’ll let go of that.

Second Plummer — I can still hear that line inside my head — “You’ll be investigating thieves, misers, bullies. The most detestable collection of people you will ever meet — my family.” Yeah Plummer was marvelous. Nailing the role as you say — and a complete departure from the original. The Swedish Vanger seemed meeker, frailer, and less dynamic.

Third the non-Swedish cast? Once the decision is made to do the American version, then the necessity of more Swedes in no longer in play. They’re going to be speaking English, so anyone is in play.

Okay, I toss one to you — Lisbeth seems to pick up the girl in the bar — She sits there, sending out a visual “I’m interested”. and moments later she has her hand between the girl’s legs. Did this surprise you — did you see her as the sexual aggressor?

Didion: Actually, that completely worked for me. It’s a bit of a fantasy, I think, that a woman might recover from being brutally raped that she’d engage in sex so quickly (and with a man, later, when she seduces Mikael). But that’s a fantasy that belongs to Steig Larsson, the book’s author.

Larsson wanted a heroine who was absolutely iconoclastic. She heads to that gay bar because she likes sex and wants to enjoy herself. It’s a nice scene in which she takes back her own sexuality and has sex how and with whomever she pleases. Again, just because most women would be traumatized after what Lisbeth has been through doesn’t mean that this scene didn’t work; for me it seemed yet another instance of Lisbeth taking control of her life, not letting other people rule her.

JMM: Lisbeth didn’t seduce Mikael. It was more like she jumped on him. He crawls into bed, unaware that she’s taking off her clothing, and to me, he was genuinely surprised. I also didn’t think it was a gay bar. But I agree that she was taking control, if not of her sexuality, than  certainly of her emotional state.

Didion: Fair enough!

You mentioned above that you thought it wasn’t better than the Swedish version — and on that we disagree. I thought this one had a more disappointing Mikael, and told a better tale. I also liked it that this one showed more of Lisbeth’s dogged pursuit of Wennerström’s money at the very end. Why didn’t you think this one trumped the earlier version?

JMM: First of all, they solved the case too easily. Did Mikael figure the Old Testament angle in the book or in the first one? I didn’t like that he moved right ahead – after his daughter gave him the clue when she said — the bible references as she was boarding the train.

Didion: In the book it was Mikael’s religious daughter who solves the bible verse question; in the first film it was Lisbeth. A quick note: I don’t know my bible very well, but this aspect of the story never seemed persuasive to me. Does anyone refer to bible verses in telephone-number format? But that’s a side issue.

JMM: Okay — And I disagree about Lisbeth’s ‘dogged’ pursuit of Wennerström. She said she’d already dug into him, and when she asked Mikael for the money, she already knew everything. What was left was the execution of stealing the money – not the pursuit of finding it.

As for the actual references — it was a short hand — she left out the book, the chapter, the verse.

But back to why I didn’t think the new version trumped the old one. The ending — I kind of liked that he had to go to Oz (Australia) to find Harriet in the old one. This new ending was a nice twist — but maybe it was a cost saving twist, as well as a completely new ending.

Didion: I liked that twist too. And goddamn, if Joely Richardson as the London financier/Vanger relative wasn’t amazing. It’s fabulous that she’s such a ringer for her gorgeous mother, Vanessa Redgrave; but here she uses a slight twitch in her eye to convey that big emotions are passing through as she hears news of the family. Amazing. And I was fooled — that’ll teach me for being such a Larsson completist.

If I were going to quibble, I’d point out that there’s something a little too easy about the idea that Harriet assumed her cousin’s identity. But whatever.

Here’s a more valid quibble (but it matters to me, anyway): the chess scene! Early on Lisbeth is bringing a copy of Bobby Fischer’s book on chess to her former guardian, indicating that she knows from chess. But at the very end when they play a game, their first moves — to shift the rook pawns (at the edges of the board) into play — are the dumbest of all possible first moves. Was there no one on that set who’d ever played chess??

JMM: I missed the eye twitch. Very good on your part to have noticed. The whole guardian gambit was a bit confusing. When she visited him I wasn’t sure who he was. In the original Lisbeth got a call announcing that he had a stroke, and was being replaced – did she get this call in the Fincher version?

Agree on the chess — but if we consider that (Palmgren) made the first move, and he had the stroke, maybe it was rationalized that way….

Didion: That raises a really good question: is this film, as well as the Swedish version, written and produced for fans of the books? I may be so inside the box that I can’t rightly tell.

It seems to me that Fincher was in a tight spot. I mean, look at the film versions of popular books with millions of crazed fans — shall we call this Harry Potter syndrome? or, at the risk of alienating many of my own readers, Pride and Prejudice syndrome? — directors are left trying to figure out how much of the original plot elements and/or dialogue to include.

Fincher had to explain how Lisbeth ended up with that appalling Bjurman as her guardian without distracting us from the real story, which was the mystery inside the mystery. So, JMM, do you think this film is intended for fans of the books, or is it also just a great stand-alone film?

JMM: I think you are asking a series of questions. The motive for making the film. That’s easy — the producer Scott Rudin could easily see that book sales (65 million copies) far exceeded the amount of money that the Swedish film and sequels took in. That could mean but one thing — many more people would see the film if they didn’t have to bother with subtitles.

Didion: Here’s my own opinion: Fincher is a total top-shelf director who gets to choose his projects. And although he’s best-known for his films that deal with manliness on interesting levels — Seven, Fight Club, The Social Network, even The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — he’s also regularly done film projects about some awesome kick-ass women (Panic Room, Alien III).

I wouldn’t be surprised if he read the book and/or saw the Swedish version and said to himself, “I love this Lisbeth Salander. I can turn this into a phenomenal film.” That is, I doubt mere ticket sales entered into his thinking, because he doesn’t need to care a whole lot about that, especially after the crazy success of The Social Network — and I’ll bet he just started to imagine how to make a great film with a great heroine that tells a great story.
JMM: Okay, I have to back off then because I don’t really know who first got the idea. But back to your other thoughts. Bjurman being added was a decision made by the authorities in Sweden. If we think about that — Lisbeth would get whoever was assigned. She’s have no part in that decision. It was her bad luck to get one of those Men Who Hated Women.

Finally — the third part of your question — Yes the film does work as a stand alone. It isn’t necessary to know the story or to have seen the originals to enjoy this one. Although knowing the story certainly helps you. Didion, have a look at this image — and tell me what you think when you see it —

Didion: I’m struck by how giant Craig appears next to the teeny Mara, and how trepidatious they both appear. And I’m embarrassed to say that I can’t quite remember when this scene took place in the film. What do you think this scene conveys?

JMM: I don’t recall the when either. But I think it is clearly before they had sex. But maybe not. But I just like the look of it. Mara seems a bit more closed in than Craig does in the shot. But maybe it was just a scene in the transitional sense. And only that.

Didion: Okay, I’ve got a scene for you:
Mikael has been shot at, and there’s a lot of blood coming out of that head wound — especially because he’s been running away. I loved, lurved this shot, and it makes so much sense that it immediately precedes the sex between them. In any other film this would have been a tender moment of clarifying their gender roles: brave, injured man allows gentle, care-giving woman to care for and heal him. But this one is vintage Lisbeth: she takes a reel of dental floss, “sterilizes” it with some vodka, jams the bottle into Mikael’s hands, and starts stitching him together in the most efficient, unsentimental and brutal way imaginable. No bedside manner whatsoever. Loved it — because it jars your memory of all those other fixing-wounded-men scenes, and imprints Lisbeth on you in the most vivid way.

JMM: Wow. I loved that scene too. The physicality sets us up for the sex that followed (even though Blomqvist was still surprised). When you mentioned other films about a female care-giver, I immediately dredged up Lara from Dr. Zhivago in her war nurse time. But you‘re right about it establishing and clarifying Lisbeth. To me it WAS standard Lisbeth. Full throttle — no concern about to how to do it — only that is was necessary and needed to be done asap.

Didion: Actually, your thoughts there make me think about the sex in a slightly different way, and you’ve reminded me that when she unceremoniously jumped him, he’d been in the middle of fretting about the case, their safety, his own pain. I remember thinking, as she climbed on top, “Well, that will get his mind off the pain.”

That is, I don’t think she jumped him as a Lisbeth version of caregiving — I really do think she just wanted some sex (after all, stitching him together may have been the first human contact she’d had since much earlier with the hot woman from the bar), but it was also helpful to get Mikael to shut up already about the pain/the case/their safety.

JMM:  Well we won’t have an answer to the why — shutting him up, easing his pain, or just that she needed the sex. All or any worked and fit.

Taking us back away from sex for the moment — I liked both Stellen Skårsgard and Steven Berkoff as Frode. I considered both a vast improvement over their predecessors in the original.  What about you about Berkoff as you’ve already mentioned Skårsgard…

Didion: Oh yeah — he was fabulous. I especially liked it that as the Vanger family lawyer he appeared somewhat inscrutable, even suspicious at times. He really helped to add to the general atmosphere of the film as full of memorable faces and shadowy motives. Really, the entire supporting cast was amazing.

I’ve always loved Fincher’s films for their use of lighting and atmosphere. One of the other reviewers you quoted above complained that the film was overly cold; but I loved the sets (that Vanger family compound-qua-island was just perfection) and the fact that so much of the film takes place in winter, with snow falling. (There’s even a lovely scene in which Lisbeth says, “It’s Christmas again,” and you think to yourself, wow, that’s the weirdest Christmas moment in film history.) And let me say how much I liked it that the scenes from 1966, when Harriet Vanger disappears, scenes during which Fincher uses a washed-out Kodachrome-style color that looks old but cutesy or fake. The original Harriet was also a perfect casting decision.
JMM: The supporting cast was indeed terrific. Even Armansky was an upgrade.

Didion: Yes! Good for Goran Visnjic, who also made a great move from Beginners to GWTDT! He looks excellent in grey hair, IMHO.

JMM: As for the winter aspect — that’s what makes the story great. This couldn’t have worked on a Caribbean island. As for the flashback to 1966 — this had to done that way — the washed out look seems to takes us back in time. At least it does for me.

But to bring you back to the winter — and this will be a philosophical question about Larsson’s motives — When Skarsgard’s character is discussing (maybe ‘bragging’ about his earlier victims) he uses the term ‘immigrant women’ and says that no one will care for or miss them. And when Mikael is talking with Harald — it is Harald who describes himself as the most honest man in Sweden — is this Larsson taking his countrymen to task  for their not so hidden racial and ethnic philosophies — and is this an off-shoot of having to endure long and severe winters — that the Swedish society had more indoor time on their hands … ??

Didion: I wish I could say for certain — sadly, I know just enough about Swedish cultural politics to make me dangerous. With the hope that Scandinavians will write in to comment and correct me, I’ll say that Swedish crime fiction seems to me fascinatingly obsessed with the theme of how a vision of “traditional” Swedish culture is having to come to grips with a new reality of multiculturalism, immigrants of many colors, and social change. And all of this has dredged up truths about the Swedish past that many people would prefer to keep buried — the the large number of open Nazi sympathizers among the population, etc. Anti-immigrant action and violence has reminded many Swedes of an ugly past they wish would go away. In that respect, I think Larsson’s GWTDT is of a piece with contemporary anxieties.

I’m not convinced this has anything to do with the long winters. And I’m not sure Swedish winters are any harsher than those in Massachusetts or Chicago (many Europeans are appalled by what New Englanders/North-Midwesterners live with). Swedish winters are darker, though, that’s for sure — much closer to the North Pole.

Interesting that this anti-immigrant posture comes up in a European context. I hadn’t considered that perhaps Fincher is also slipping in a warning to Americans about their own anti-immigrant tendencies, and where they lead. This isn’t altogether convincing, but who knows?

JMM: Okay. Maybe this is too far reaching a topic for us to go any further with it. Just thought I’d ask. Back to the film — and we can begin our descent towards closing — What was your favorite scene?

Didion: Whew. This is a tough one, but let me say three things: 1) the scene in which Lisbeth stitches Mikael up, natch. 2) The scene in which she enacts her revenge on Bjurman. Which requires some explanation: it’s a tough scene to watch, but what I liked was how clearly she had planned out every possible way to prevent him from ever, ever touching her again. She laid out the new terms for their relationship in an almost unemotional way and had covered every single possibility for his resisting. I could live without the scene of her tattooing him, but who doesn’t love the idea that such a man is now permanently scarred with details of his own crimes?

And third: I loved the fact that this film was so creepy, so thrilling, so nerve-wracking that I shivered through the entire thing and walked out of the theater in serious need of some yoga. It’s the perfect filmic version of a creepy, thrilling, can’t-put-it-down book.

How ‘bout you? Do you have a favorite scene, or three?

JMM: Of course, I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t. The first is within the revenge scene — when she says, if the terms weren’t met or if she was harmed that the video would be uplifted to the net. Second, when Berger is at the cottage and she heads off to the bedroom, strips down, and asks Mikael if he’s coming to bed, and he gets up and heads in immediately. And Three — I think when Bjurman gets into the elevator and finds he’s locked up in a small space with Lisbeth. He probably figures she’s already got the stun gun in hand, so he can do nothing. It is here that Lisbeth tells him that if she finds him with another woman, she will kill him. That was my single favorite moment.

Didion: Oh! you’re too right about that elevator scene. My favorite part: that he was literally shaking in his boots during it — yet again the scene reversed the typical gender dynamics of such a moment, as it’s usually it’s the raped/traumatized woman who’s got to face her victimizer, which feels yet again like a kind of assault. Loved it.

So if I had to conclude, I’d say again: loved the film, loved Mara’s Lisbeth, loved the story-like-a-house-on-fire, loved the scenery/moodiness, loved the feminism. I’m so-so on Daniel Craig, chesty as he is. I’m not sure I’ll buy the DVD — I rarely do — but I’ll probably watch this film three more times when it comes out on DVD. One final thing: go see it in the theater, because it’s worth seeing all that snowy dark creepiness on a big screen. After seeing with only 12 other fans, I’m concerned it’s not going to hit the box office numbers it needs/deserves.

Any final thoughts?

JMM: I attribute the sparse crowds in your theater to the fact that it just a few days before Christmas. However that doesn’t explain the nearly packed theater that I saw the film in. I expect the numbers to increase post Christmas. But my brother did state that the survey stated that ¾ of the women surveyed were NOT hot to see the film. I’m sure I will buy the DVD.

I will also say that I loved the film too. Whether or not I think it is better than, same as, or less that the original is really a separate. question. My last thought was that the opening imagery was truly creepy – maybe this was a part of the reason you have used the word ‘creepy’ so often.   

Didion: So, JMM, here’s to a film that gets us all off to a very interesting start to the holiday season! Hope yours is full of eggnog and spice cookies and fattening foods, and less inflected with the rape/revenge/Nazism/terror of a Swedish winter with Lisbeth. I, for one, found this film to be a refreshing palate-cleanser for all the saccharine holiday movies and Little Drummer Boy music I’ve been hearing. And now I’m fully prepared for a happy visit with the family.

Feliz Navidad! and enjoy what I hope are easy travels, as this is a terrible time of year for travelling.

JMM: I wish you a happy holiday too. I’m hoping to avoid snow in Northern Connecticut. As for the holiday fattening foods, I probably won’t be able to avoid them. But I’m fairly certain I won’t seen any rapes or Nazis in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The War Horse, or Ghost Protocol.

Didion: That’s the best holiday wish of all: that we both might see some excellent new films. I’ll drink to that. Cheers, and I’ll see you on the flip side.

JMM: See ya! And have a cold one for me.

“The Whistleblower” (2010): art or medicine?

Critic/blogger JustMeMike (The Arts) and I sat down to chat about this film as we have about earlier films, most recently Larry Crowne (2011) and Miral (2011).

Didion: Hollywood has some oddities, and the biopic/advocacy picture is one of them: those films based on true-life accounts of ordinary individuals who encounter, and decide to address, some kind of horror. Think of Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich (2000), in which the titular character comes to realize that a Pacific Gas & Electric station had knowingly poisoned the water near one of its stations in a lonely community out in the southeast California desert. Or Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda (2004), in which a generally nonpolitical hotelier seeks to save his fellow citizens from the exploding Hutu/Tutsi civil war, a genocide ignored by most of the world.

The biopic/advocacy picture is often the kind of film that doesn’t forge a lot of new ground cinematically or narratively, yet still seems nicely positioned for awards and prizes because of its role in educating the public about serious matters and offering us a real-life hero.

Larysa Kondracki’s The Whistleblower (2010) faces these same challenges and opportunities. Set in the aftermath of the mid-90s Bosnian War, where the American ex-police Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) has gone to work temporarily with the UN peacekeeping mission, the film traces her gradual transformation from a contract employee to a serious adversary on the subject of violence against women and sex trafficking. Like so many heroes of biopic/advocacy films, Bolkovac is no freedom fighter — she’s taken the (highly lucrative) job because it allows her to earn the money that will allow her to move to Texas, where her ex-husband has moved with their daughter. Yet when she comes across a savagely beaten wife being dismissed by a group of Serbian police working alongside the UN peacekeepers, she becomes infuriated and fights to get the husband convicted. Even still, she sees this as simple good police work, not a crusading mission…until she begins to realize the extent of rampant sex trafficking and sex slavery in the region, likewise being ignored by local authorities, the UN, and a Halliburton-like company (called Democra in the film). Warning: Spoilers ahoy in this conversation!

First-time director Kondracki has written, “When you put together the words Bosnia, peacekeepers and sex-trafficking, people assume it’s going to be either ‘educational’ or ‘important’, in other words: medicinal.” Has she succeeded in moving beyond a “medicinal” film?

Feminema’s new favorite cocktail, required drinking for disturbing films about violence against women

I don’t know about you, JMM, but talking about this film requires something more substantial than a beer. I’m drinking my new favorite, a Sidecar (cognac, triple sec, lemon juice), reportedly the only Prohibition-era cocktail that’s still drinkable. And it has the added benefit of the lemon juice, which both evokes summertime and helps me avoid scurvy.

JustMeMike: Can you buy the Sidecar drink pre-mixed, you know, like in the supermarket for a stay-at-home treat? Anyway after seeing the matinee today, I feel like I need to drink a Boxcar — that’s a four pack of Sidecars. The Burns Court Cinema had what could be called a sparse crowd today for their opening screening of this film which was at 2:15 PM — maybe a dozen and half people. When the film ended, the “crowd”, that’s stretching the truth, was silent as we filed out. It felt like we had all been beaten up. I know what I was thinking — am I a member of the same gender as those sex traffickers? So I am setting the table to say that the film was a lot to take in, and it made me angry.

Didion: Yeah, the only downside of the Sidecar is that the lemon juice thins out the alcohol required to recover from the unmitigated horrors of sexual violence depicted here.

I have mixed feelings: on the one hand, I think it’s good that people might leave the theater angry about what they’ve seen. It’s particularly frustrating here, as the UN and the Halliburton-like Democra seem jointly concerned that the scandal not affect their reputations. On the other hand, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with that anger. Does the movie tell us?

JustMeMike: Well my anger actually bounces back and forth from grand to a much a smaller scale. So I’ll table your comment about the private contractors for the moment. I’m upset that Kondracki has painted such a bleak picture about the sex-trafficking and then hasn’t built a very good film around it. Seems to me that Bolkovac should have been in greater danger as a direct threat to the status quo. But a few muttered threats on the phone aren’t exactly scary. That was all we got. I never felt that Bolkovac was in peril. The direct result of that is that our anxiety for her is lowered.

Didion: So long as we’re staying on the big-picture level, I’ll confess that there were elements I just didn’t believe — which is too bad given that Kondracki has spoken about the extensive research she did on the subject and Bolkovac’s tale in particular. Here’s what I had trouble with: I totally believed that sex trafficking might be so pervasive, and I believed it might be rife with violence toward women. But I had a harder time believing that once Bolkovac started to uncover the complicity of UN officials and Democra employees, those individuals didn’t back off and close down their activities in Sarajevo.

The film tells us that above all, these men are brutal, evil misogynists so utterly depraved that they’re willing to risk their whole enterprise — they’re so eager to keep savaging their sex slaves that they put their lucrative operation in danger, even going so far as to recruit a major UN official to risk his career facing off with Bolkovac. I feel as if I ought to be her ideal viewer (that is, I fully believe such misogyny exists), but instead she lost me with such exaggerated bad guys.JustMeMike: Good point. Seems a bit off, doesn’t it? The whistleblower is doing her thing, tooting her whistle, and they say, never mind, ignore this person — business as usual.

While we are making hay with the negatives, I have another. So Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave just continues to impress me) introduces Bolkovac to Peter Ward (David Straithairn). Rees tell her (and us) that Peter Ward is a good guy — you can trust him. Then Kondracki gives us a big plot twist. Don’t know about you, but I saw that one coming as well as the second twist. Seemed like she might have done better by bringing us in beforehand during the plotting. Anyway, I wasn’t fooled.

Didion: This returns to your earlier point: the film uses some of the oldest tricks in the thriller book, yet leaves gaps in logic — why didn’t we ever feel that Bolkovac was in danger for her life from these guys?

I’ve been thinking back to Hotel Rwanda and how educational it was for me — it made me realize that even if ethnic violence is so complex that outsiders cannot perceive good guys and bad guys, international intervention is necessary to stop massive genocide. As hard as that film was to watch, its message was crystal clear. The Whistleblower certainly raised my feminist hackles and showed me that the UN was so concerned with reestablishing a certain level of normalcy that it purposefully looks away from the issue of violence against women. That’s quite believable, and quite disturbing. But what more are we supposed to learn from this film?

JustMeMike: So who says The Whistleblower is meant to educate — if you mean call attention to the issue of sex-trafficking or violence against women, then certainly, but if you mean the UN looking the other way — then I’m not so sure. Of course it’s disturbing — but even the UN is administered by officials who are in charge of the local situations. So even if the local officials in Bosnia were either playing ostrich or were part of the profit taking — can we safely say that the entity known as the UN is directly responsible? That the blame goes all the way to the top?

Probably not.

Yet I can’t help but agree, that the issue of violence against women is quite disturbing. I wonder if Kondracki’s point is to alert and educate about the continuing violence against women, or to put the UN and private corps on notice that the whole world is watching and will watch even closer, or both?

Didion: Of course this film is meant to educate us! Why have a true-life tale unless audiences can walk away with some kind of lesson?

But you know what’s tragic? I’m never going to watch The Whistleblower again, nor will I watch Hotel Rwanda again — they’re just so gruesome. I guess I’m saying that I did find this film “medicinal,” to use Kondracki’s terms, and that I find these biopic/advocacy films medicinal almost all of the time, which makes me loath to see them. So here’s a question: when these films are, say, less than stellar, does that actually have a negative effect: it makes viewers never want to see these films (and therefore keep their heads in the sand about Important Issues)?

JustMeMike: Whoa! Slow down a bit. I think you’re leaping into an abyss here. It is only a less than stellar film, not truly a film to abhor, and more likely while the film lacks that excellence that we want so much, it shouldn’t cause a pell-mell journey in an opposite direction…

Didion: But remember walking out of the theater with all those viewers stunned into silence? Ugh, who wants to experience that again?

JustMeMike: Guilty as charged your honor, but I meant that as in bruised and battered. If the film was a true dud, or worse, than the crowd would have been in a muttering and grumbling mode. I mean no one was demanding a refund, or saying that the Director’s Guild should rethink Kondracki.

Didion: All right, all right, I promise I’m not saying this is a bad film. It’s actually very effective, as I think both of us have attested, in getting viewers angry. But it’s SO bruising. Really, would you want to see this film again? That’s why I say “medicinal.”

This actually gets back to one of my favorite rants: that filmmakers should never show rape onscreen — and now I want to expand that rant to include violence against women. It’s so horrifying, such that I think film ultimately just stuns the viewer and makes you not know quite what to do with all that horror — when in fact these are horrors that happen to real women and children all the time.

JustMeMike: Wow — I think we could go for hours just on this last statement of yours. While I am agreeing that the rape scene was horrific, I think that the intent was exactly as you described it — to stun and horrify. All for the purpose of making sure we knew exactly how desperate and dire these women’s situations were. But yes, sadly, it went on far too long and was simply too much for most of us to bear. And on that basis — I will not watch the film again any time soon. But I won’t go as far as never again. Let’s revisit that rape and violence against women again later on.

Didion: There’s a less horrific, but more affecting scene in which Bolkovac goes out to the woods to find a woman dead — a woman she’d tried to protect, a woman who’d suffered extreme beatings earlier, a woman she’d persuaded to testify against the traffickers, now killed by them. For the first time, Bolkovac breaks down, even though she’s surrounded by some of the worst corrupt cops and UN employees (who are certainly responsible for the murder): she screams and cries. It’s a striking scene that, for me, completely worked in achieving what you describe: showing her sense of absolute horror at what’s taking place there. It’s a strange scene, too, in that it didn’t provoke me to tears (and everything gets me teary-eyed) — but I felt a true power in the scene.

There’s also a subplot that doesn’t involve Bolkovac: a story of one of the victims’ mothers, who asks her sister-in-law for money to travel to Sarajevo to find her daughter. Very slowly, she comes to realize that her brother is the very person who sold his niece into sex slavery. This, for me, was the plot element that showed how simple greed for money is the core of the entire problem.

JustMeMike: There you go. Weisz breaks down with a combination of horror and guilt after she finds that Irka has been killed. Very potent stuff. I am on board with your thought about Greed for Money being at the core of the entire problem. Greed rarely exists on its own. It generally goes with seeking of power. When combined, there always will be victims.

But let’s take a look at the film the opposite angle. What did we like about the film? I liked Weisz/Bolkovac’s fearlessness and determination. I liked Redgrave’s grace and her soft looking but steely authority. Talk about aging and looking great. Wow. And I liked Straithairn’s beard.

Didion: And let’s specifically note that if at all possible, one really ought to have such piercing, bright blue eyes if one is permitted to age with a magnificent head of silver hair like Redgrave’s. I’d also be willing to watch David Straithairn butter pieces of bread for two hours straight.

Weisz was great — really great. But no matter how good she was, and no matter how she seemed absolutely present for all her scenes, the part didn’t allow her a whole lot of range. Sorry to keep bringing up Erin Brockovich, but that part was kind of delicious in contrast — Bolkovac was much more straight-up police in contrast.

JustMeMike: Since we’ve covered stuff that we didn’t care for, and then we slid over to stuff we did like, I’m wondering if we can find something where there is a divergence of opinion. To start I’ll offer a question — why are these monitors granted diplomatic immunity?

Didion: We do seem to be arriving at an unusual level of agreement on this one. I’m not sure why they’re granted immunity, but we can speculate that it was due to the perceived importance of protecting UN missions in general and perhaps concealing the complicity of higher-ups? Or at the very least protecting the higher-ups from having disregarded Bolkovac’s charges.

The more I think about it, the angrier I become — this film discusses such disturbing and important subjects, and shows how much they’ve been ignored by international overseers like the UN, yet it’s not a tight enough or persuasive enough film to make heads seriously roll. It was also weirdly buried with a late-summer release, as it’s the very furthest thing from a summer film — I mean, it had to compete with Rise of the Planet of the Apes!

JustMeMike: I guess we are still agreeing. The late summer opening may not be so weird. If the producer and releasing company privately feel that the film is flawed, then giving it a bad slot, as well as a limited opening, virtually guarantees a smaller ROI (return on investment). It’s called limiting your down-side because by reducing the number of screens you also reduce the number of physical pieces of film that you need.

How about this as a question: Is there something about Bolkovac’s make-up that we haven’t enough facts for? I mean in her divorce, and it was her second divorce, isn’t it still unusual for the court to decree that the husband got sole custody of the daughter. Why did that happen?

Since we don’t know — are we supposed to guess at a reason — or reasons: Is it possibly that Bolkovac was a woman who took up relationships rather easily? Maybe she slept with other police officers while still married?

And three — we witnessed a phone call from Bolkovac to the daughter — who seemed not to want to talk to her mother. The call ended all too quickly. So what is your take on these three events, either singly, or taken altogether as group?

Didion: Wow, I’ve got two very different responses to the question of Bolkovac’s personal life. The feminist in me says, I want her personal life to be as irrelevant as possible, because this is really a story about her whistleblowing. The one thing that seems obvious is that this is a woman who took her job so seriously that it was doubtless detrimental to her relationships. There’s a big moment early on when she decides to stay in Sarajevo rather than return to her daughter — and she decides to stay because she knows she’s doing good work there. Re: her custody agreement, I assumed that, as is becoming more common these days, a judge determined that her ex offered a more stable home life for her daughter than she could (and there’s a reference to her having a poor attorney). If there’s one thing I’ve learned from police procedurals on TV, it’s that cops are often too distracted to make good partners and parents. (Thank you, The Wire.)

I did find, however, that her relationship with the Dutch peacekeeper to be both wholly under-developed and more than a little nerve-wracking. I kept wondering whether he was really a bad guy, whether her leap into that relationship was poorly-considered. I think the filmmaker ultimately didn’t know how much to make this a biopic, how much to make it a thriller, and how much to make it a ripped-from-the-headlines tale. I wished Kondracki had either left out that storyline, or delved in further.

JustMeMike: You said, “As a feminist, I want her personal story to be as irrelevant as possible, because this is really a story about her whistle-blowing.” The underline italics are mine, not yours. But can you clarify that statement. Isn’t this about whistle-blowing? I think that you are right when stating that the whistle-blowing is more important than the personal story — but why is this from the perspective of a feminist, rather than just a perspective?

Didion: It gets back to Erin Brockovich (again), in which the story is humming along and she’s got the new thing going with the hot biker guy next door and she’s figuring out all the details of the PG&E coverup — and then the story screeches to a halt so she can get an earful about how she’s not spending enough time with her children. Message: women who really care about their work are bad mothers. I was furious with that element, because otherwise the film showed a working-class woman who’s given a chance to care about something beyond the usual caregiving blah blah blah.

So if Bolkovac had been portrayed as prone to extramarital sexual relationships with her co-workers and/or not a dedicated enough mother, the film would have engaged in that same kind of preachiness and cheap explanation: “oh, she’s interested in helping these women because she’s kind of a slut!” or, “her work is so absorbing that she’s returning to her old bad habits of being a bad mother!” Films are more inclined to indulge in that kind of cheap explanation with female characters more than with male characters.

Instead, I like the idea that she’s just kind of a normal, straight-laced police officer who’s appalled by the situation she encounters partly because it’s just an example of really bad police work.

JustMeMike: Okay, that works for me. Avoiding the personal story because it would come at the expense of the real story of the whistleblower. Makes sense, especially since you have experienced a similar story and witnessed a derailment because the main story was hijacked for a while.

But that last line is also puzzling. Do you really mean the situation that Bolkovac encounters is an example of bad police work? I have a problem with that. If a narcotics cop busts a drug dealer and confiscates drugs, but keeps a portion of the drugs for his own personal use, or for use in getting confidential informants to snitch, or even for re-sale, is that bad police work, or is that simply criminal behavior? I’d say that the private contractors who were heavily involved in sex trafficking were big-time criminals.

Didion: Whoops: I meant to refer to an early point in the film, when she sees the police failing to go after the wife-beating husband. It’s really early on, when no one suspects anything about the sex trafficking — and what I liked so much was that she seems to approach the issue wholly from the perspective that this is lazy/bad police work. That is, she didn’t respond “as a woman” or from any exaggerated feminine sympathy — she just wanted a crime prosecuted properly.

JustMeMike: Okay, makes sense. And yes, I liked that part very much. She became gung-ho about solving that one, and seeing that justice, or at least an investigation, stepped into the picture.

Didion: I think, after thinking about this for a couple of weeks, I most regret that Kondracki had chosen to make this as much of a thriller as it is. I think this made her inclined to gild the lily — as in, it made her exaggerate plot elements like the way the corrupt UN officials and peacekeepers went to such lengths to humiliate and discredit Bolkovac in order to keep beating and raping women sex slaves. I kept thinking, “Even if that’s true, it’s not believable, and once my trust in the story’s gone, I just don’t know what to do with all those gruesome images of women being beaten.”

JustMeMike: I’m with you on all of that including Kondracki’s decision to make the film into a thriller. Only I won’t go as far as you do. I think (like you) that this was her fundamental mistake. On that basis, I won’t call it a thriller. But I will go as far as to label it a thriller-wannabe.

Didion: I like the mixing of genres on the whole, but I do think here it muddies the waters. Can I ask one more question of you — that is, what do you think this does for Rachel Weisz’s career? I’ve been thinking lately that she’s making some smart choices lately — from The Constant Gardner to The Brothers Bloom to this … she’s good at American accents, and she’s getting a wide range of very smart acting imprinted onto the American conscience (and god knows this is where the movie money is made by international actors). What do you think — was this strategic?

JustMeMike: Absolutely strategic as in well-played. I recall first seeing her in a film about a sniper called Enemy at the Gates. She played a Russian girl called Tania Chernova and she certainly seemed European to me then. Now, she doesn’t seem European at all. I think she’s marvelous — she has the looks, and the smarts, and I think variable roles are her strong suite. By the way, Weisz has a new film coming quite soon — The Dream House — her co-stars are Daniel Craig and Naomi Watts. It is in the horror genre. Coincidentally, and strangely, Craig’s character is guess who — another Peter Ward.

Didion: Isn’t she great? And very well-educated (compared to many actors); I like to give kudos to the smart ladies.

I saw a preview for The Dream House recently — alongside trailers for a number of creepy thrillers (one called Martha Marcy May Marlene [whew!], and the other called Take Shelter, with the always-creepy Michael Shannon). Looks like a damn good Halloween season coming up, if you ask me.

So, JMM, do you have any final thoughts on this one? A quip? Some kind of pun on the idea of whistleblowing?

JustMeMike: Not really… I don’t think this film needs a pun from me. I would recommend the film and despite its flawed structural elements, one can walk away at least pleased that some one, even from the wilderness of Bosnia stood up and blew the whistle. I have a feeling that I should give you the last word so you can get in a final thought about on-screen violence against women. By the way, I’ll be in China for Halloween.

Didion: I’m less enthusiastic about the film overall, and not just because of the on-screen portrayal of violence against women. As much as I appreciate what Weisz and Kondracki wanted to do, it’s not as good a film as I’d like, or effective enough re: advocacy against sex trafficking.

Many thanks, JMM — and let’s keep our eyes peeled for good films coming out this fall that might offer more good conversation — maybe even one of these creepy Halloween flicks.

JustMeMike: Thank you Didion for the enjoyable dialogue. I’m ready and more than willing to toss back a few more Sidecars with you again.

Didion: Word.

“Larry Crowne” (2011): do we want to believe?

Following our earlier chats this spring about White Material and Miral, the critic/blogger JustMeMike and I decided to choose more mainstream material this time: the big-release Larry Crowne, the film directed and produced by Tom Hanks and co-written by Hanks and Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding). As with so many romantic comedies, we approached this one wondering whether we’d be charmed and delighted, or feel abused by its commercialism. Read on to find our unexpected answers!

JustMeMike: Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts or Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks — might this be the next big pairing or as some have decided: America’s newest screen sweethearts? I mean Hanks and Meg Ryan lit up the box-offices with Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. When Roberts was paired with Richard Gere in Pretty Woman and The Runaway Bride — the results were pretty much $Ka-ching! What do you think?

Didion:  Having only seen the preview at this point, I want to know: isn’t Hanks a bit long in the tooth to be playing the cutie-pie sweetheart? Unlike the perennially handsome Gere or George Clooney, he’s going to have to get past his midlife paunchiness to appeal to us. I’m also not sure yet that Julia Roberts can convincingly play a beaten-down, cynical professor. (I know cynical professors, ma’am, and you’re no cynical professor.) My read on the trailer is that this is a role reversal from You’ve Got Mail: Hanks has been slotted into the perky Meg Ryan role, and Roberts is the cynical Hanks role.

Larry early in the film

JustMeMike: How old is Hanks anyway? Can we agree to call him not-yet doddering, but surely way past being able to play the male ingénue? I’ll go along with your knowledge of professors and academia if you’ll accept that I know something about having a paunch – so let’s set the movie up right now: (SPOILER ALERT * SPOILER ALERT)

In case some of you haven’t seen the much-circulated trailer, Larry Crowne opens with Larry getting fired from his job at a big-box store. Even though he had a long career as a Navy cook, they explain, he lacks a college education. Turned away from other jobs and feeling the pressure of an inflated mortgage, he signs up for a few classes at the local community college, including an econ class (with professor George Takei) and a public speaking class with professor Mercedes/Mercy Tainot (Julia Roberts). Along the way he befriends a beautiful free spirit and fellow scooter-rider, Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who updates his style, invites him out with her pack of scooter riders, and otherwise initiates him into a more youthful culture. Meanwhile, Mercy’s unhappy marriage is crashing and she’s going through the motions at her job, when one night Larry offers to give her a lift home, a ride on the scooter that leads to a quick, drunken make-out session at her door. The next day she insists they both forget about it.

Meanwhile, Larry’s economics class helps him come to grips with his bad-debt mortgage. He sadly but resolutely jettisons his beloved house, reluctantly procures a job as a fry cook, and excels in his courses. Along the way, Mercy takes increasing notice of him. By the end, convinced of his merit, she acknowledges to herself that she’s attracted to him — and she begins to make opportunities for them to be together.

Didion: WHOA. I just saw the movie and have tons to say about it. First, on whether Hanks is too old: they must have faced this objection early on, because this is a makeover movie! By the halfway mark he’s jettisoned his dreary middle-aged gear in favor of the grooviest clothes, has a chain attached to his wallet (!), and, naturally, has a 20-year-old best friend/style diva who apparently dresses him for free. I was so surprised to find this to be a film in which the guy undergoes a makeover — it’s such a staple of the rom-com, but it’s always reserved for women.

Here’s a question for you: what did you think about the Julia Roberts character? I’m still trying to figure out why she didn’t quite work for me.

This rings true: the agonies of teaching + hangover

JustMeMike: Okay, leaving the Larry Crowne makeover on the sidelines for the moment — what struck me was the reversal of the shapes in this film. When I think of Julia Roberts, I think beautiful, sexy, and she’s got that wow factor. Tom Hanks has that sturdy, upright, up-standing, Jimmy Stewart everyman image. In Larry Crowne — Hanks got softer, rounder, and with his receding hairline, he just looked older than his true age 53 [Didion]: I just looked this up and he’ll be 55 in a couple of days]. But Roberts? She looked sharper, with more edges instead of curves, her chin more pointed, and her smile looked narrower.  She lost her glow and her warmth. But maybe that was what was intended — as a dissatisfied woman, unhappy in her marriage, and not thrilled with an 8:00 AM class.

Didion: Yeah, I agree. But her unhappiness also seems to have turned her into a pretty serious alcoholic, which could be a really interesting and depth-making character issue, except that she’s not really much of the focus in the film. Maybe I just found her … um, a little cold? A little unfocused?

JustMeMike: She arrived in class after power breakfast of an alcoholic shake — so she needed the  sunglasses. With those on — cold is a good description. Maybe bleary-eyed as well — but I’ve no proof…

Mercy Tainot commencing her frozen-margarita evening

Didion: There’s another issue re: believability: in the world of us professors, if a class gets canceled, your pay gets docked — seriously docked. As in, if you’re only teaching 2 instead of 3 courses a semester, your pay goes down by a third. (Or they make you teach an extra class the following term.) So her eagerness to have classes canceled really doesn’t ring true.

JustMeMike: As for college reality — I thought it strange that the Dean of Student Services sat in the class twice. Probably had a thing for Tainot.

Didion: Argh. No way. By the end I was cranky enough to think Larry’s final speech was kind of lame (as a speech) too — but it was sweet, and that’s the important thing. One more thing I didn’t believe: that Larry would be fired from the big-box store for not having gone to college … but I suppose his bosses could have been lying about it to get rid of a more expensive worker.

Things I did believe: that Larry was a sweetheart, that he cleaned up nicely, and that he learned some pretty useful information in that econ class with George Takei. The Julia Roberts part of the film just seemed less sensitive and developed — and I had a hard time buying the chemistry between them. Which is too bad, because I would’ve thought with Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) as a co-writer, we might have had a more believable romance.

JustMeMike: The issue you keep going back to is the believability/reality factor. I guess you’re saying that Larry Crowne asks you to suspend disbelief so often, that you are bothered by it. I am in agreement with everything you mentioned that’s false:

a) Cancellation of classes
b) The 20 something scooter pal
c) Dean sitting in twice
d) Big box store firing him for no college degree
e) Chemistry between the leads

Yeah, all of the above are puzzlers. But I don’t think you go into a film that is being sold as a rom/com expecting reality. In other words, while all of the above are true — I wasn’t bothered by them as much as you were.

Didion: One more thing: a cousin of mine married a Navy cook who served for 20 years, and I believe his Navy pension has left him in a pretty sweet financial position. But maybe not enough to manage a massive mortgage debt like Larry’s.

JustMeMike: Now there’s something that I can rail about. Crowne begins with the firing of everyone’s candidate for permanent employee of the month. Then we learn about the huge nut he can’t support any longer – his mortgage and alimony payments. So Hanks and Vardalos begin with the set up of Larry Crowne being let go in the midst of the terrible economy. That’s a difficult topic. I saw that in The Company Men.

I think that setting the guy up on the shoals of life in order to change him isn’t going to garner them any kudos. Plus the terrible economy shouldn’t be a topic to either gloss over or take lightly. But I’m glad that was just the front end rather than the main course.

You know, he didn’t go from the U-Mart to the fry cook job. He did make the rounds. He took the cooking job out of desperation.

Didion: So maybe that’s going to be the essential question between us: is all the unbelievable stuff going to be too much to bear, or are there other reasons to enjoy Larry Crowne?

All this discussion about Larry and the economy makes me think that Larry Crowne is a romance on several levels: Larry learns to face his terrible personal finances; Larry undergoes a makeover, yet he returns to working as a fry cook, the one thing he never wanted to do again after being a cook in the Navy; and Larry finds (possible) love.

On the issue of his taking the fry cook job: honestly, I wasn’t sure what to think. I wasn’t sure whether to trust the fact that Larry didn’t want to do that anymore, or whether circling back to that work has its own satisfactions (he is, after all, quite good at it). What do you think: are we supposed to feel as if Larry’s giving something up when he takes that job?

JustMeMike: Necessity is the all-powerful ingredient in determining if you will take a job you probably promised yourself you’d never do again. I’ve been there. Drove a taxi in NYC once upon a time.

Didion, interjecting rudely: Driving a taxi! That story should be the start of a screenplay, perhaps entitled A Different Taxi Driver!

JustMeMike, continuing politely as if he had not been interrupted: Yes I do think there’s much to like about the film. First Larry Crowne is a nice guy. With or without the paunch, or the receding hairline, or the softness and roundness — that’s why Talia likes him, his squareness, and near fuddy-duddy style is to her — very cuddly. Ultimately, that’s why Ms. Tainot eventually changes sides from indifferent to liking — because he is likable, and he not only tried to improve himself but he accomplished it.

Second, and I’m just getting started — some of the writing of performances were great — George Takei’s Professor Dr. Matsutani was wonderful …

Didion: And I have to say, speaking as a cynical professor-type myself, that I love having older students in my classes, so long as they’re like Larry — eager to learn and be surprised. (Sadly, I’ve also had their depressing counterparts: the ones determined to show that they know everything already.) So I agree, absolutely, that Larry’s open-mindedness makes him appealing. And George Takei! He’s so weird, and I’m with him on the cell phones in class policy.

Character is key — so in that regard, you’re right — I fell for Larry the way I always fall for those characters who undergo makeovers in movies.

But on the question of believability issues, we should talk about the way the film portrays a post-racial fantasy-land. I find this completely fascinating. I grant you that someone like Talia might well take to Larry. But surely it’s worth discussing that people of color in this film are all slotted in as the uncomplicated yet colorful best friends who help out and offer up no racial tension whatsoever.

JustMeMike: On this we agree. This is a major flaw of the movie. This is where the teeter-totter goes way overboard — or should I say over-tilts. Hanks is trying his best to be nice. Offend no one. Leave no group out. His rainbow coalition of scooter friends is a just as silly as the multiracial makeup of the class. Not only did they offer no racial tension, they offered no tension period. Where’s the class bully when you need him? Maybe that role was assigned to Ms. Tainot.

Malcolm Barrett not given enough time to demonstrate dance moves

Said another way — what’s wrong with a post-racial fantasy land. After all this is a movie, and nothing more. But then again I’ve not attended a community college where academic admission is far less of a challenge.

Didion: Not a problem or even a flaw — but so striking as to be rich for analysis! On the one hand, this is the most racially diverse film I’ve seen in a long time; we could use more post-racial fantasies if we want to make it more realized. As far as I’m concerned, Pam Grier, George Takei, and Malcolm Barrett (who was fabulous in Better Off Ted) can show up in any film at all and I’ll be happy.

But none of them is fleshed out at all…not even the beautiful Talia. They all sit comfortably back, like colorful, unproblematic background furniture, helping to give Larry a rich environment in which to transform. Blecch. The film is all Larry’s character and not enough story with other figures.

Pam Grier as Mercy’s best friend

You know what I kept thinking? That the writers might have thought the lack of racial tension would make a film about getting fired during a bad economy more watchable for viewers who’ve actually been affected by the downturn. I.e., it’s a movie that resolves all other issues to help soothe people’s views of the economy.

JustMeMike: Yup — from a logical standpoint that makes sense — if you start with the bad economy based downsizing, add in some angry scooter folks also in the same or similar situation, and then some discordant classmates — then you will have a film that makes everyone angry and is something no one wants or expects in a rom/com.

As for Pam Grier — I was actually surprised when she re-appeared in Act Two.

Larry with his neighbor, Cedric The Entertainer

But back to the stress — the only guys that displayed some mostly mild anger were:

1) The neighbor (Cedric The Entertainer) who thought his yard-sale monopoly was being infringed when Larry carted out his stuff
2) Talia’s boyfriend — Dell Gordo (Wilmer Valderrama)  who thought his exclusivity with Talia was being infringed.
3) Tainot’s husband Dean (Bryan Cranston) who was just overdrawn ridiculous from the get-go. Any guy addicted to internet boobs would be looking at naked breasts not clothed ones.

But that brings us back to Hanks’ universal concept for the film of making nothing truly objectionable, or to make a film with as few hard edges as possible. That I understand even if I don’t like it or appreciated it.

In my view — the most ridiculous or objectionable part of the film was seeing Hanks’ skivvy-clad bottom in the changing of clothing scene. I’m wondering what they were going for with that?

Didion: I’m not sure I have any satisfying concluding words to offer on the subject of race in this film — it’s noticeable but it ultimately doesn’t especially affect the central story about Larry. And you know what I thought about during the aforementioned tighty-whitey scene? “I wonder if Talia will upgrade the skivvy situation?”

From a professor’s point of view, I thought the movie could have made more out of the tension about a professor dating a student. It’s verboten for us — I can’t tell you how many times we get warned about it. It’s always, always associated with something dirty and untoward: the idea that a student might get better grades because of a relationship, and/or that a professor is taking advantage by offering better grades as rewards. Any time one person actually has power over the other person’s life on campus — re: grades, a dissertation, etc. — you’re not supposed to get involved. What they always say is that they don’t like to have faculty dating students — but if you must, wait till the person is no longer in your class, and/or have another prof take over supervision of the grad student so it doesn’t appear untoward.

And I agree that the power dynamics of the situation can’t help but affect the relationship, even if there’s a genuine attraction/love between the people — how could Mercedes know that Larry didn’t just have a hot-for-teacher kind of tweak? (And who doesn’t have a hot-for-teacher kind of tweak?) How could Larry know that Mercy didn’t enjoy being the smart and powerful controller of the relationship? If I’d been in her shoes, I would have been more worried about losing my job than Larry’s locker-room talk. But that doesn’t sound much like rom-com material either, does it?

You know what I wish I’d looked at a little more closely? The number of times crowns appear in the film as motifs. The one I really noticed was when Larry picks Mercy up at the bus stop: there’s a big crown on the billboard behind her. Actually, aside from the curiosity factor, I’m not sure I’ve got much to say about this motif except that it subtly makes me like Larry a little bit more each time.

Sorry, Julia, for this hideous screen cap — it’s the only one I could find with the crown on the billboard.

JustMeMike: Whoosh! There’s the sound of the crown motif sailing by me. I totally missed that. Nice one for you to have noticed. I didn’t think that Larry in his basic undershorts was there for Talia to fix. I think it’s there so Wilderrama could toss off another burned and steamed look. Speaking of him — for about ⅓ of the film I thought I was watching Esai Morales — only I couldn’t reconcile the age gap.

As you said, having a bit more of issues/problems vis-a-vis teacher/student dating would have been a whole other movie. Not this one.

Okay what else did you hate or like? I kinda liked the scooter pack. In all my years I’ve never seen one. I kind of liked the music too. Not too hard and not too soft.

Didion: I did like the scooter pack — but can’t remember the music. I liked the scenes of that San Gabriel Valley (I think) part of LA where it’s shot — I kept wondering, when they were driving around, if it was Altadena or Pasadena or Silver Lake or Eagle Rock, [JustMeMike: per IMDB the film locations listed Altadena so you were right with your first guess] and whether they’d head out for chicken & waffles. I love movies that really give me a sense of where they’re filmed. (Of course, I also know people who spend all their time at those movies getting angry that they got the locations wrong. “You don’t drive on that level of the Bay Bridge to get to Oakland!” etc.)

JustMeMike: Okay got it. I too am particularly fond of watching films in places I’ve been. You know what I think – that you really didn’t hate it as much as you thought and I didn’t like it as much as I thought. It wasn’t terrible and it wasn’t great. The bad husband got his come-up-ence, the people who were supposed to be together got together, and the sun will come up tomorrow.

Didion: Oh, I can muster much more rage than that! I could say, “HEADLINE: if having a charming central character is enough for you, then Larry Crowne will work; but beyond that the narrative is tepid.” Or, in my cranky feminist guise (and who doesn’t love hearing cranky feminists go on rants?) I could say, “So what? another white dude has thoughts and feelings.”

But yeah, in the end you’re probably right — it’s a perfectly middle-of-the-road rom-com that won’t have you vomiting uncontrollably by the end. (Advertisers: please put that on a poster!)

I could also list a whole pile of better rom-coms that you should see instead. From the above-average (like The Wedding Singer, or Only You) to the truly excellent Amélie or When Harry Met Sally.

JustMeMike: Yeah, “I’ll have what she’s having.” A memorable line if there ever was one. Of course on this we agree, that Larry Crowne is not memorable in any way, shape or form. Not even the casting of these two will elevate this film to that kind of level.

That Scene from When Harry Met Sally

As for vomit-inducing films — that’s got to be a figure of speech — otherwise you’d have been barred from numerous theaters.

I wonder if Hanks aimed for middle of the road intentionally, or thought it was better than that and he failed. I also read that he shot for the adults and seniors opening against Transformers 3 and that the target audience isn’t enamored either….

Didion: One final thought. You asked at the beginning whether Hanks & Roberts might be the next big-money pairing — and I was reminded by a friend tonight that they had appeared together once before in Charlie Wilson’s War — in what were arguably much more interesting and even sexually-charged roles. I kind of loved her as that terrifying right-wing Texas power-broker. In short, I like them better together when they’re fighting each other tooth & nail, and much less when Hanks is an unobjectionable nice guy!

Final words? Perhaps, please go see Midnight in Paris again instead!

Two critics walk into a virtual bar and talk about “Miral” (2011)

JustMeMike: Today readers we are proud to present a conversation about the new Julian Schnabel film Miral. Both of us live in the USA — one in college town in a southwestern state, and the other in a coastal town in southwest Florida. Schnabel  filmed in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, not all that far from the West Bank. So this discussion will have a distinctly western flavor to it. That’s in the geographical sense only — in case you were wondering. Political inclinations hopefully won’t enter into this talk about the film.

While the actual location of the meeting shall remain a closely held secret, what was said will have no such protections. Without further preamble, I’ll ask our friend Didion to introduce herself and tell us a bit about Miral’s director Julian Schnabel.

Didion: I’m a college professor and film fan, and on my blog I usually discuss issues related to feminism, cinema, and pop culture — so Miral seemed a perfect film for conversation, for it tells the tale that focuses on three generations of Palestinian women.

Freida Pinto as Miral

Putting women at the center of a film is a shift for Schnabel, whose (brilliant) earlier films drew on artistic men’s biographies and autobiographies to create extraordinary films: Basquiat (the story of painter Jean-Michel Basquiat), Before Night Falls (the autobiography of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas), and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (based on the memoir of fashion magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, written during the time he suffered from locked-in syndrome after a massive stroke).

An initial response: I admit, I’d read just enough of a couple of mixed reviews about Miral to go in with low expectations (there was a grand total of 5 people in the theater). Sometimes that stance can allow me to appreciate a film all the more because I don’t expect it to be a masterpiece. But I walked out of this one annoyed. Its politics were naive, the story was split awkwardly between four different women’s lives and political inclinations, and I never felt for any of them the way I did with Schnabel’s previous protagoinists. Was it just me, or was Miral a bit of a dog’s breakfast, as the English say?

Hiam Abbass as the schoolteacher, Hind

JustMeMike: Wow, I’d not heard that one before — a dog’s breakfast — nor have I consumed a dog’s breakfast. I’m a transplanted New Yorker living near the golden shores of the Gulf of Mexico. My blog (The Arts) discusses film, art, travel, and I even dabble in foreign television.

My experiences with Schnabel, prior to Miral, consist of knowing that he was director of Basquiat, an artist  whose name was often overheard in bars and restaurants on West Broadway in lower Manhattan years back. But I never saw the film, so Schnabel was an unknown for me.

I too had low expectations for Miral from reading a few reviews. I knew of Freida Pinto from Slumdog Millionaire, and I knew of Alexander Siddig from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the TV series, who portrayed Miral’s father in this film. As I exited the theater with the sole other person who caught the matinee, she asked me if I liked it. I answered that yes, I did like it, but that it disappointed me, and that it was flawed. My first disappointment came from the fact that Vanessa Redgrave and Willem Dafoe, were each named on the film’s poster, but combined for no more than five minutes or so in the film. Do you think that was a bit of gimmick to create interest for American viewers?

Redgrave, Abbass, and Dafoe in an early scene

Didion: That’s a great point: as much as I love to look at Vanessa Redgrave, she was a distraction for me here — as was the weird appearance of Dafoe as a sort of love interest who was never developed. Surely Schnabel can’t believe that the kinds of viewers who want to see a film about the Palestinian struggle don’t require Dafoe and Redgrave as catnip to show up? It would have been nice, instead, to have more than two actual Palestinian actors in prominent roles in the film (Yasmine Al Massri, who plays the troubled Nadia, is Palestinian-French; the wonderful Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass plays Hind Husseini). All the other leads are not Palestinian.

But my larger problem was with the way the film ricocheted between four women’s different relationships to political activism in the wake of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the course of nearly 50 years. At times I thought it simply wanted to show how that conflict affected different women — which would’ve been a strikingly agnostic way of looking at the conflict. At other times, especially toward the end, the film seemed to grasp for simplistic solutions, à la “let’s hope for peace.” We didn’t even get to Miral (Pinto) until the last 45 minutes or so of the film, and she seems to be so easily influenced by the people around her (father, boyfriend, teacher, cousin’s girlfriend) that she has no clear identity or agency of her own.

Yasmine Al Massri as the tragic Nadia

JustMeMike: Of course your view concerning the structure of the film is correct. He, or rather she, the novel and screenplay were written by Rula Jebreal, who is Schabel’s significant other, probably wrote the story of Hind Husseini, the founder of the school in the novel. But likely there wasn’t enough color in that story alone. So Nadia is introduced. Once Nadia is incarcerated she meets Fatima in the jail and we then learn of her story. Then little Miral appears. Certainly it is difficult to build a generational story spanning 50 years, and then compress it in to two hours. I wouldn’t say the story ricocheted, which implies a lack of control. I thought it was more linear than that. But the result is the same. None of the four females’ stories seemed to have any depth, which makes them unsatisfying.I’d like to add that the marketing of the film led me to have a different expectation. Especially from the trailer. I went in expecting Miral to become a terrorist. Was that what you expected?

Yasmine Al Massri and Alexander Siddig as the newly-married Nadia and Jamal

Didion: Absolutely re: the trailer. In fact, it was the contrast of Pinto’s beautiful face and abject posture (sitting glumly on a bench in her school uniform, as if in a police station) that intrigued me so much initially. After all, one of the questions that has dominated in the media has been, why do women make up such a striking percentage of Middle Eastern activists and Islamic terrorists? It seems to fly in the face of gender stereotypes about women being “naturally” pacifistic or unaggressive (does anyone really believe this stuff about “natural” gender differences, or does it just make for simplistic reportage?). Even if we throw those stereotypes out the window, it remains interesting to think about why women in a place like Palestine make such a wide range of different political choices. But by dividing its narrative into four different women, the film doesn’t sufficiently explain the motives and ideals of any of them; if anything, Abbass’s politically neutral schoolteacher is the most fully-realized and sympathetic of all the characters. JustMeMike: Ah … at least in the film, Nadia, who is the second woman of import whom we meet, is at least attractive. Her life is hard, if we take what happened to her in her home which forced her to flee, and led her to become a dancer, her choice are more clear-cut than not. Fatima, on the other hand is a nurse who spent her time in an ill-equipped clinic caring for the wounded without sufficient equipment or medicine. Her anger is there for us to see, even if it is not quite fully realized. Schnabel and Rula Jebreal are asking s to make that leap along with Fatima.

Schnabel went clearly for controversy because he, a Jewish man himself, made a film that isn’t quite pro-Palestinian, and not quite anti-Israeli, but the film does lean or tilt in both of those directions. Then he ups the ante by having the trailer make us think that the film will take Miral to the dark side — terrorism. Plus we aren’t getting any deep motivational signals from Miral. As you said early, she goes in the direction of whoever she is closest too. Which leaves us with Schnabel not really taking sides which leaves the film awash and floating  from one side to the other.

I’m wondering if you agree with my thought of his intent to be controversial but in a soft way?

Miral and her aging schoolteacher (Abbass)

Didion: Many American Jews feel conflicted about Israel, especially with regard to the Palestinian question, but it does remain pretty controversial; I can see that he would have wanted to tread softly on a subject that could earn him the charge of being antisemitic. But if it’s true he was trying to thread the needle between controversy and making a political statement, I still believe he’s mainly achieved a muddle.

But rather than be an unmitigated hater, I’ve got to mention how much I loved a few of those vintage Schnabel moments: the beautiful, dreamlike shots of Nadia belly dancing in a bar; the way the camera captured her drunkenness by blurring out the edges of the screen as she stumbled home at the end of the night; the scene on the bus when a man hits on her and his wife/girlfriend calls her a whore. These are purely experiential moments that reminded me of some of the best footage from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, an amazing film.

JustMeMike: Well, since I have not seen either of those films just mentioned, I’ll have to pass on agreeing about what you’ve remembered. But I’ll tell you what I thought of some of the images and content in Miral. First off, his camera was way too jittery in the first 8th of the film. It just wasn’t needed. Then during Nadia’s rape — before we knew what we were looking at, Schnabel decided to focus up close on one of the posts in the bed’s headboard which was vibrating to such a degree that you couldn’t tell what it was. I thought that was also unnecessary.

Miral learns to like her cousin’s Jewish girlfriend, Lisa

But I loved when Miral and Lisa were driving back to Jerusalem and they got stopped at the check point. First of all, it was scary even though Lisa was an Israeli and Jewish, while Miral was also an Israeli but Palestinian. Schnabel had by then instilled some fear in me for the characters. So that was well done. In the same setting, you noticed that barrenness of the area – stony hillsides, almost devoid of trees. It was but a brief moment, but it struck me with its starkness. I also liked the street and walls of the Old Jerusalem. It was marvelous to see thousands of years of life in the form of narrow streets and stone walls staring at us.

But I also felt that there were too many strokes to the beating in jail. It was agonizing to watch especially after they had pointedly shown no more than a brief flash of it in the trailer. So I was kind of shocked. And then further shocked when the Judge freed Miral, even though we had been carefully prepped that without evidence, the cops had no case against Miral.

What else did you find interesting or attractive?

Miral and her boyfriend, Hani

Didion: You’re so right about the shaky camera; in fact, the image pixillated when it panned too rapidly around a scene. Was he trying to convey disorientation?

On the scene of Nadia’s rape, with the sound blurred out and the strange view of the slats in the headboard: I actually found that a nice solution to depicting more graphically the pain and humiliation. NOT that I ever want to see rape depicted onscreen, a topic I’ve ranted about in the past.

Now that you bring up those scenes, I want to turn the topic to the subject of women a bit more. The film seems to me to be preoccupied with different forms of female suffering — whether it’s Nadia’s rape, her harrassment in the bus, her propensity for drunkenness, Miral’s beating in jail, the aging Hind sitting in her room coming face to face with the implications of her apolitical stance. Am I exaggerating, or does this film tread so softly onto potentially controversial subjects in part by watching women suffer?

JustMeMike: Sorry — I don’t think that you can play that card and be correct about it. If you applaud because the four central characters are female, and the film is set in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the film is written as a drama, then suffering is not unexpected. Yes, the degree of suffering could be called unbalanced and even unfair to a degree, but who in the film was happy?

Certainly not the heroic Hind, played marvelously by Abbass; she died alone in her dorm room. She was likely satisfied with her life as a humanitarian and a teacher, but that is not the same as personal happiness. Miral was happy as a child but definitely not as a 17 year old. Nadia and Fatima? Okay, Nadia’s life was overboard in terms of what she went through — but this could have been to get her into jail in order to introduce Fatima, who was given a harsh sentence, which was used to establish a bias against the courts and laws.

Hind rescues a small army of Palestinian orphans during the 6-Day War

As for the men: Hani, the Palestinian lover of Miral was killed. I did like the way that scene was done because of how we were distanced from it. Jamal, Miral’s father, at least in the sense that he raised her, but he handed her off to Hind — for a better chance at a future — but this must have been a difficult decision for him. Then he was abused by Miral herself when she said that Jamal had spent his whole life hiding in the mosque. It wasn’t a true statement of course, as he had done his share by bringing other children to Hind’s school, but it must have hurt him deeply. I don’t think his character spoke any other lines after that scene.

So yes, I think you are exaggerating.

Didion: That’s not quite what I meant. To clarify, I’m not sure I’m applauding this film at all, despite the fact that it has women characters at its center; there are plenty of films with female protagonists that disappoint on many levels.

My question is, what does electing to have four female protagonists allow Schnabel to do? And I think the answer is that he ultimately upholds a fairly conventional notion about female agency: the Jewish-Palestinian conflict in total hurts Palestinian women — it makes them choose between political activism/guerrilla fighting and being politically impotent, puts them in the way of being raped by men and/or beaten by the police, and throws them into prison for the slightest of offenses. Schnabel wants his viewers to pour forth emotion on behalf of these suffering women — and this is a level of emotion they might not express for male protagonists because we’re not used to sympathizing with Middle Eastern men. I think the film creates melodrama because we’re used to seeing women as victims, that’s a shame. The most activist of the women, Fatima, is given very short shrift by the film. Most of the women get batted around by fate or the men in their lives, or ultimately regret their attenuated relationship to political activism.

It’s true that we sympathize with Jamal (and the Sudanese-English Alexander Siddig is excellent, as he was in Syriana and Cairo Time), but we also view him as a man made impotent by his wife’s infidelity, his failure to engage in political efforts, his feminizing kindness to his daughter.

Miral with her aging father, Jamal

JustMeMike: Thanks for the clarification. I was not hearing (understanding) you accurately and I believe that at times we are discussing the film on separate levels — which means that Schnabel has indeed created a controversial film. There’s the perspective of a film fan, the perspective of international political pundits and authorities and regular folks watching from the sidelines while tuned into CNN and reading their newspapers, and there’s the perspective of those who spend time considering the social and humanistic aspects of their own lives, the films they see, and whichever parts of the world they are in contact with.

Fatima is indeed given short shrift by Schnabel and Jebreal, and I believe that is because the film must be fit into a finite amount of time, and because she is the least sympathetic character. This in itself is not a flaw. Hind Husseini who popped into the film every 10 years or so, was basically relegated to the sidelines and her perspective was as you have already said to keep her school safe and secure and separate from the politics. I agree with you that we should have seen more of her. Nadia was the every-woman character who represented the terrible lot in life of Palestinian women which may have nothing at all to do with what Schnabel and Jebreal want us to think or may have everything to do with what the filmmakers intended for us.

Miral learns her friend won’t have to marry involuntarily

Miral represents the future yet to be determined. She is avid but at the same time not a deep thinker. I thought that Pinto was able to convey her territorial prerogatives as a young Palestinian woman but I wonder if she was hired  for her looks and to help sell tickets. If that is so, then the film’s principals were looking at the business side of things. Which is another reason to be angry. Sorry for coming to that so late — but you already touched on it when you mentioned the shortage of Palestinian actresses in speaking roles.

Didion:  I want to say one more thing about the film’s politics: I felt that Schnabel was surprisingly vague about solutions. He advocates peace at the end of the film, but offers no particular means of doing so beyond asking the Israelis to honor the Oslo Accords of 1993 (signed to conclude the Intifada of 1987-93) — which were pretty damn controversial amongst Palestinians. Now, I don’t really have a dog in that fight (although in full disclosure I will admit to having more sympathy for the underdog Palestinians) but no one can be so naive as to believe that Declaration of Principles would resolve all the problems. I’m not sure whether to go so far as to accuse Schnabel of copping out or to believe that he needs stronger, clearer material to work with before he enters into it fully (he handled Cuban and AIDS politics nicely in Before Night Falls, perhaps with the aid of Arenas’ terrific autobiography).

JustMeMike: I’m going to mostly pass on your last comment, neither agreeing or disagreeing, because mainly I don’t know the history beyond the surface. But I will say that the Oslo Accords of 1993 and Hind Husseini’s death in 1994 are all historical facts. As is the fact the Rula Jebreal herself was a student at Husseini’s Dar El-Tifel school starting at the age of 6 and for the next 13 years. So she was protected as a student from much of the Palestinian hardship outside the walls of the school. She was also inside the story. On the other hand, Schnabel wasn’t anywhere near the story. He comes to the story years later with the built in advantage, or maybe it is a disadvantage, of historical hindsight. As do we.

Director Julian Schnabel

Maybe it is fair to say he did a cop out, and maybe it isn’t fair to take that position. Just as it isn’t all the fault of the material either. The story told in the film ends nearly 16 years ago. So we have stronger and clearer facts to work with which aren’t part of the story. But having said that, I still believe, like you, that the story told in the film was indeed trying to be somewhat persuasive but did not succeed in that regard.

Didion: I’m hardly an expert, either, but even the film shows that Miral’s boyfriend Hani is killed by other Palestinians when he supports the Oslo Accords. With a conflict this old and complex, there are no easy solutions.

So I’m wondering, JMM, as you look back: what works in this film, and what doesn’t? Beyond the question of whether you’d recommend it to your friends (and readers), what do you think matters about this film?

I’m thinking that my answer might be that it brings attention to the Palestinians’ experience of this long conflict, and this is enhanced by Schnabel’s decision to have such an interesting range of women at the center. So even though I’m skeptical of its treatment of women and its simplistic plea for peace, and doubtful about the film’s ultimate coherence, I hope very much it brings attention to the complexity of the situation and the serious imbalance of power between the two groups.

And one more exasperated note: the more I think about it, the more I’m annoyed that the film tries to construct a stalled mini-romance between Hind Husseini and Willem Dafoe’s Eddie!

JustMeMike: No easy solutions for peace — absolutely. What works? The plight of children in a conflict is a story as old as conflict itself. But instead of focusing throughout the film on the newly orphaned, the school is pushed off to the side, and this was a good choice.  Yes, I am in agreement with you that this story told, from the perspective of the Palestinians, does bring a fresh look at this long conflict, and does humanize the Palestinians. This too is a good thing.

What doesn’t work? As you have already stated — Schnabel/Jebreal have not given the female leads in the film a more rounded or fuller personas. It is as if they’ve each been shoehorned in to a narrow arc. Hind is the heroine and Mother figure — but we don’t learn much about her other than her fierceness in protecting and caring for the children. Miral is at the center but we don’t get to see her mind at work. Fatima is the terrorist, and Nadia is the victim.

I thought the film was rich visually as well. As for the stalled mini romance — agreed it wasn’t necessary — but it might have been far worse had they chosen to expand the romance and give it some legs.

Didion: You’re so right. But it’s so depressing when a critic is reduced to saying, “It could have been worse.”

In the end, I think this film is disappointing — beautiful and even eloquent at time, but ultimately I come back to my initial claim: it’s a dog’s breakfast. As much as I’m sorry to say it (I’m a big fan of Schnabel), it won’t keep me from seeing his films in the future.

JMM, this has been a pleasure! I’m looking forward to our next virtual barroom conversation. Let’s hope next time we find a film that we can be ecstatic about. (She raises her pint for a toast.)

JustMeMike: There you go. Disappointing is the mutually agreed on single word description. You mentioned Cairo Time in your comments. Timing is everything as that film arrives today from Netflix. So I am going from one Middle East hot spot to another, cinematically, of course.

Sure, we can do this again. It was fun, and I agree that we need a film that we can gush about, in fact I’ll drink to that. (He simultaneously clinks glasses, sweeps the accumulated peanut shells off the table and then signals the waitress for another round.)