A Haunting in Venice (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

If you had told me I'd ever be grateful for Kenneth Branagh's Poirot series, I'd have called you unkind names. His characterization of the iconic detective is, to say the least, not my favorite version -- nor is it my favorite of his performances in general -- and it leaves a lot to be desired for longtime fans. His directorial efforts, too, tend toward the superficially spectacular, imbuing what should be "locked room" whodunnits with endless CGI effects, dizzying camerawork, thin dialogue, tepid attempts at social commentary, and inane action sequences. While these observations are all, in my opinion, manifest evidence in his (so far) three titles -- Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile being the first two, the former I cringe to recall but the latter I thoroughly praise -- they also do not account for the sense of escapism, exotic splendor, and raw beauty he brings to the table while hopefully introducing new generations to Agatha Christie's important and significant body of work.

Now comes A Haunting in Venice -- familiar to fans as Hallowe'en Party -- a title (and setting) change from the source material I fully support, if only for aesthetic reasons. The original, published in 1969 and set in England, is not one I've read before, but I'm aware that this film adaptation -- the only one I know of, apart from the BBC Poirot series starring David Suchet -- takes place over twenty years prior to that, in a postwar Venice with a bunch of British expats making up its cast of characters. It's set, fittingly, in a crumbling palazzo, far too large for its inhabitants but suitably spooky for their Halloween party, filled with orphaned children celebrating (wartime orphans, both from the violence and the occupation). Once the children leave, though (at least, the living ones), the adults remain for a séance requested by the palazzo owner, former opera star Rowena Drake (a magnificent Kelly Reilly). Drake is in mourning over the apparent suicide of her daughter Alicia -- it's suggested she threw herself into the canal after her fiancé chef Maxime Gerard (Kyle Allen) ended their engagement -- who has seemingly been haunting the palazzo since.

The suitably Gothic setting, complete with spectacular thunderstorm and ghostly children running about, perfectly frames a truly scary story. Perhaps it's so chilling because it's one of Christie's less-familiar ones, so the element of unfamiliarity pervades each scene. But there's even some surprising violence (thankfully less "action," as Poirot would never!) that makes its PG-13 rating a bit hairy. The story isn't really anything new, just a reliable whodunnit murder mystery that ramps up as more bodies fall. Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green still work very well to modernize and pare down Christie's detailed and sometimes sprawling cases into more concise, direct, and thrilling escapades on screen, and I admire that they're bringing big budgets and A-list casts into a type of classic old film we just don't see anymore. Moreover, they yet again elicit a surprising theme from one of Christie's mysteries, this time about the futility of the violence of war: Branagh starts this story in early retirement, tired of death both personally and in terms of the second world war, dealing with broken psyches and weighing what had been won with its cost. The sinking city on the brink of rot is a perfect setting for this thematic conceit.

Enter celebrity medium Joyce Reynolds (a brilliant and chilling Michelle Yeoh), who plans to communicate with Alicia and maybe help her spirit rest. Poirot has been invited by Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey as an Agatha Christie stand-in crime novelist) whose sales aren't great and who desperately needs a big hit. Oliver is hoping to either discredit Reynolds or otherwise learn some secrets that will make for a profitable story. It helps that the assembled guests make for suspicious and eccentric characters: the Drake family's housekeeper Olga (Camille Cottin) who sees everything; PTSD-riddled war surgeon Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan) and his charmingly precocious son Leopold (Jude Hill, Belfast) who seems able to see ghosts while caring for his father; the medium's assistants Desdemona and Nicholas Holland (Emma Laird and Ali Khan), war refugees and half-siblings; and of course and angry and mourning Maxime, just to make things spicy.

I'm curious now to read the book, because, much like Branagh's previous two films, I suspect much has been invented for this one, beyond the setting. Green, after all, is very good at writing inventive new stories based on beloved material to popular success (he wrote the previous two Branagh Poirot films, of course, but also Blade Runner 2049, Logan, Alien: Covenant, Jungle Cruise, and the series American Gods). Green imbues Poirot with a nihilistic sensibility I found perfectly suited to Branagh's interpretation and presentation of the character as he atheistically mocks the idea of consulting the dead while musing on the increasing cruelty and violence in humankind, perspectives not dissimilar from Christie's own near the end of her life. He's surrounded here by characters desperate for money and purpose, shell shocked from war and away from their homes without the means to either stake a new claim or return to the life they once had.

A final note, and one I'm admittedly unprepared to fully explore: Branagh's grandiose style has always been a bit "too much," and not just in this franchise. But this is one of the first times I really understand why he's been compared so often to Orson Welles -- apart from his Shakespeare adaptations -- and the influence here is palpable. His attitude toward Venice mirrors Welles's Othello, and he works with master cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos again to create a sumptuous world nevertheless in the expressionistic visual style of everything from Citizen Kane to The Third Man, including lots of Dutch angles, fisheye lenses, extreme high and low angles, extreme closeups, and excessive use of framing to isolate and block the frame. These shots are often edited to shocking and even humorous effect, making the whole experience a bit of a trippy "should I laugh or shudder" haunted house experience. Which, given the reworking of the source material, is exactly what we all hoped for and wanted. Bravo!

Heart of Stone (2023)

Score: 1.5 / 5

Gal Gadot is an arresting screen presence and a delight to watch doing just about anything, but Heart of Stone is not the kind of action vehicle I'll ever want to rewatch. Netflix clearly wants this to be the start of a new espionage/action series with bankable stars, and for viewers who just want to watch pretty people hop around the globe and blow things up, it arguably fits the bill. But it's hard, while watching, not to compare it constantly to other, better films in the same vein. Its nonsensical screenplay and peripatetic editing belie a film that is wildly over-produced, calculated to within an inch of its life to be as flat and un-dynamic as possible. And not in a campy, metafictional, or ironic way.

Gadot plays Rachel Stone, a new MI6 technician who, in the opening sequence, is forced into the field for the first time. Her team, attempting to extract an arms dealer in the Italian Alps, fails after an extended and mishandled chase; Stone herself succeeds in saving her operational contact, but in doing so almost reveals that she is in fact a seasoned agent secretly working for the Charter, a top-secret global cabal of peacekeepers. Returning to London, she reports to her Charter overseer -- they all have annoying code names but the boss is played by Sophie Okonedo, who I'd also usually watch do anything, but here she acts bored and confused -- and we're given a chance to catch up on some dubious exposition.

The Charter uses a unique computer with artificial intelligence that can hack apparently any digital device, and it's called "the Heart" because of course it is. Stone is suspicious of a hacker she encountered on the mission -- though the significance of most characters in the film are about as cursory as this, laughably -- and follows her to Lisbon, where teammate Parker (Jamie Dornan, again, a handsome and talented screen presence utterly wasted here) reveals he's working with the hacker and murders their team and poisons Stone with a device meant to hack and infiltrate the Heart. Then begins the second half of the film, which features more globetrotting and mindless action and betrayals and a happy ending.

Unlike comparable films like Mission: Impossible and the James Bond series, Heart of Stone has no aesthetic or stylized interest in its many locations, making everything from Portugal to Senegal to Iceland look both similar and bland. It's surprising because director Tom Harper also helmed The Aeronauts, which was visually stunning. The film treats its own plot much the same way, as people switch allegiances faster than the dialogue can maintain, and the bits of history we learn about the characters make more plot holes. Stone was recruited when she was only twenty years old, and we are never told what her training might have been before or afterward. The Heart works through the hands of its primary operator, cheekily codenamed "Jack of Hearts," who manipulates its digital screens in real space a la Minority Report or Iron Man any other too-futuristic sci-fi media that isn't meant to be realistic or contemporary. And, frankly, the overuse of yet another AI that needs to be protected and/or stopped reached its peak earlier this year with Dead Reckoning, and we really don't want more stories like this unless it can provide something more interesting or timely.

I so disliked this mess of a movie, I'll just list my other main complaints out of context, because it's time to wrap this up. Gadot's physicality isn't highlighted by fight choreography nor the cinematography. Despite attempting relevancy through its use of AI concerns, the film briefly and sporadically hints at concepts like determinism and themes of philosophy without actually engaging in those fraught discussions, and utterly fails to demonstrate even how the Heart works to save lives. Stone never questions the methods or even goals of the Charter, though she repeatedly interrogates Parker and the hacker about their desires to eliminate their enemies. And nobody -- nobody -- questions the Heart's mass surveillance as a potentially fascistic threat in the wrong hands, which it very well may be at present. And when the movie finally suggests the Charter isn't always so great, it blames its leader for her mistakes before essentially killing off most characters and setting Stone up with a new team at film's end. So the movie is not so subtly pro-surveillance state, and I guess pro-feminist, but one of those is years too late and the other is terrifyingly close to where we're headed. Let's not encourage dangerous ideas and cinematic incompetence by continuing this woefully inept IP.

Belfast (2021)

Score: 4 / 5

Knowing nothing about this movie in advance except its title, cast, and writer/director, I can tell you it's a complete and utter shock. Because it does indeed take place in Belfast during the earlier part of "The Troubles," the ethnic-nationalist series of conflicts that traumatized Northern Ireland for three decades. Yet the film doesn't really concern those issues, at least not at any macro level. Rather, Branagh tells a story of a young boy named Buddy who grows up in a working class family and tries to make sense of the conflict around him even as he learns to love the city they call home. The film is hardly fresh in its delivery -- it will invariably and unfortunately be compared to Alfonso Cuaron's Roma -- but Branagh is wearing his heart on his sleeve in a way that is accessible and meaningful to wide audiences, unlike that other over-lauded flick.

Its sweetness and sense of joy might feel, initially, undermined by Branagh's decision to shoot the film in black-and-white. But this vision endears it to a certain understanding of memory, reminding us that our past is plastic and as fantastic now as it was real then. It also helps us, perhaps see things from Branagh's childhood perspective a bit better, as Buddy is obviously meant to be a stand-in for the writer/director. His innocence and view of the world is occasionally complicated by sudden bursts of color, less traumatizing as in Schindler's List and more sentimental. Actually, tonally, I'd compare this more to Jojo Rabbit; although it is less absurdly comedic and more warm-hearted, there is a distinct effort to make sense of childhood trauma framed by ethnic and nationalist conflicts that, in turn, have fostered generational trauma still affecting descendants today.

Surely, as Branagh drew from his own experiences coming of age as a boy, we see and hear about the tumults in 1969 largely in broken fashion. Someone who knows nothing about the political problems in Ireland still won't be able to claim understanding after watching this movie; it's not a historical text, per se, but a memoir. Frankly, I don't know most of the details of this time period or location, but I knew enough to catch on that this movie wouldn't teach me anything new. Rather, through adult conversation heard through eavesdropping, Buddy (and we) learn that his parents are Protestant but unwilling to join their neighbors and fellow churchgoers in intimidating and, ultimately, attacking the local Catholics. As such, their household is in danger, and they face the choice to flee to England.

It's a fascinating look at the breaking of childhood molds for most of its first two-thirds. Buddy likes a girl in class -- the best girl in class -- and works hard to catch up to her academically so they can sit together in the front row. To help, Buddy is tutored by his wise and loving grandfather "Pop" (Ciaran Hinds), who simultaneously helps mend any potential fractures in his son's marriage. His son (Jamie Dornan) works in England and can only return home sporadically to his wife (Caitriona Balfe) and sons. Buddy overhears his parents arguing about a certain neighbor (Colin Morgan) who has targeted them for not standing up for the Protestant cause, a threatening figure who repeatedly comes calling. Buddy also learns to love his home from Pop, and how to love a woman like his grandmother (Judi Dench); when the day comes that the family discusses leaving Belfast, Pop indicates he will almost certainly stay in the place he's lived his whole life.

It seems like everyone in this movie knows darkly that they are operating on a quickly ending timeline, but they put on brave smiles and keep making do, celebrating holidays and playing in the streets even as barricades are erected. When Pop becomes ill and hospital-bound, at the worst possible time for the family, they still joke with each other and encourage each other to move on. Even as their homeland is crumbling around them, Buddy's grandparents shift from bellyaching about each other affectionately to intimately dancing in the living room as Pop sings Camelot's love ballad "How to Handle a Woman." In breathtaking moments like these, we see Branagh's determination to bring nascent, impressionistic memories to vivid life. But unlike Roma, which felt like a disjointed and badly annotated scrapbook of images, Belfast consistently makes itself accessible to people whose only context is that a conflict of religion and politics is brewing. Entrenching us in the experience of a child, one attempting to live his own life despite hardships, evokes the kind of "dear reader" feeling we get from reading The Diary of Anne Frank. 

Thankfully, this story doesn't involve that level of genocide, and apart from one particularly nightmarish gunfight in the street there isn't even much violence. But the emotional turmoil in Buddy's heart revs its engines in the final act of this film, when his family is forced to decide to leave their home, their neighbors, and their family. But to where will they transplant? England, where Pa already has a job? Or a more romantic, distant place like Vancouver or Sydney, as he mentioned earlier in the film? We don't ever really find out (of course Branagh in real life moved to England) except for the final sequence of the film, as Granny sends her son and his family away on a bus and achingly walks alone back to her house. Branagh dedicates this film thus: “For the ones who stayed. For the ones who left. And for all the ones who were lost.”

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)

 Score: 5 / 5

What a start to 2021! If you're feeling blue from an isolated winter, fatigue from pandemic, or heavy from what we might still loosely call Oscar season, jump aboard this raucous romp through campy excess. Refreshingly silly, Barb and Star delight all the senses on their titular trip to sunny Florida where they get caught up in a terrorist plot. This is the kind of madcap nonsense that made Abbott & Costello so popular, or the delightful mess of old Elvis movies, where silliness and style smash together to create joy. It gets aggressively weird, but that's the point; you can sense the glee with which Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, the stars and writers, developed their off-the-wall ideas. "You want to toss in a musical number?" Sure. "Do you think Reba will pop in as a mermaid?" Of course. "Will Jamie Dornan let us do this to him?" Obviously.

Two nice ladies, as they would surely like to be called, Star and Barb (Starbara and Barb, just Barb) decide to go on a little trip. It's apparently their first together, though they've lived together in the Midwest since their marriages ended. And what a trip -- sunny Vista Del Mar is their resort destination, where they can put some extra fluff in their curled hair, don their culottes, and ride a banana boat. Immediately upon their arrival -- to the wrong "resort", though they are welcomed by a fabulous musical number -- they meet hunky Edgar and fall in lust. It's especially satisfying to see Dornan do his first real comedy film, after being so scary, violent, and sexy in his other movies and shows; he's still sexy here, perhaps never more so than during his shirt-tearing song among the seagulls and palm trees on the beach. Their vacation is off to a great start.

It's a particularly tough achievement for Wiig and Mumolo; comedians often make the best character actors, though it's rare for them to do so in a full movie. The broad mannerisms and lack of subtlety require endurance as well as judicious choices, so they don't dazzle too much too early and coast their way to boredom. These women are never less than delightful and manage to keep their characters, thin as they are, distinctive and eccentric and even a little surprising until the very end. It helps, too, that the film rapturously embraces post-menopausal sexuality with taste and humor without really naming it; early on, their love triangle with Edgar leads directly from a disco version of "My Heart Will Go On" to their threesome, and there isn't shame associated with it. Indeed, though a rift between the two women starts to form much later in the film, they mend it quite easily and remain solid friends throughout the thinly plotted drama.

Plot, you ask? I suppose, if you count the bizarre plot to destroy Vista Del Mar by the film's mad scientist-ish villainess, the albino woman ostracized by sunbathers for her allergic reaction to sunlight. Captioned in the film as "Dr. Lady" and played by Wiig, I think she had a name, but I don't remember it. Dr. Lady is better anyway. With the help of Edgar, who unrequitedly loves her and hopes his efforts to wipe the beach resort off the tourist maps will finally allow them to consummate their relationship, she plans to unleash killer mosquitoes from an underwater submarine, to torment her former tormentors. Though this criminal plot is the only real plotline in the film, it feels unimportant most of the time, allowing the antics of the leading women to fully control the film's structure and pacing. Which is smart, because there is never a dull moment with those two.

I've still never seen the now decade-old Bridesmaids -- I know, I know, I'm dead to the gays -- but it's definitely on my list now. If it's anything like this movie, I'll love it. There's just something infectious about the irreverent absurdism of this kind of movie, a series of elongated SNL skits, that is never less than entertaining for me. And that's from someone who doesn't like a lot of comedy. Plus, we've got Jamie Dornan as a beach babe, so there's that. But perhaps I most loved this movie as an escapist, nonsensical balm that delivered much-needed kitsch to a year mostly void of it. A movie like this, in times like these, provides comfort and joy, reminding us that it's always okay to be silly.

Synchronic (2020)

 Score: 3.5 / 5

First responders see the weirdest things. Philandering Steve and domesticated Dennis are two paramedics working the late shift, and they are called to the scene of what appears to be attempted murder. That is to say, it appears someone was impaled on a sword, but the sword in question is stuck in the wall and...rotting? The other person at the scene is incoherent, clearly under the influence of something strong. Over the course of the next few nights, more strange and violent scenes crop up, and other than horrific circumstances, the only link is the presence of a mysterious new drug called Synchronic.

Of course, as a new feature from filmmaking duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, this movie aims to mess with your mind. I don't want to spoil too much of the plot or themes, but then this review would have to end now. Their previous movies (Resolution, The Endless, and Spring) work best, in my opinion, when you know nothing going in, letting their wild rollercoaster take you on a totally surprising ride. They tend to play fast and loose with genre, and Synchronic is no exception. And while I'd say this latest science fiction venture clearly has a bigger budget to work with, it still feels small and intimate. Much like last year's Antebellum, this one has a lot on its mind and works hard to stay grounded and tactile, despite its thrillingly complex concepts.

The movie takes quite a while to set itself up; we don't even hear the word "Synchronic" for a long time. Much like the elusive meaning of the title-- which doubles in referring to the mysterious drug (by using the slang) as well as time theory -- the movie shifts between genre tropes and references to other movies. Is it an arthouse character study, despite its limited scope in terms of probing the two main characters' minds, or is it a time-bending thriller a la Tenet? Does its tendency toward horror reflect its aesthetic or its political-historical interests? Even its basic concept, once explained in a rather beautiful way around a vinyl record player, becomes the tool by which our main characters can be less understood: as Steve uses the drug to try and find Dennis's missing daughter (who also used the drug), their motivations and fates and traumas begin to swirl together around a gaping empty space where we are asked to do the hard work of understanding the characters' internal lives.

This is where the editing and cinematography come into play. While watching the movie, I became increasingly annoyed at what I assumed to be unnecessary and distracting shots of starscapes, upside-down pans and bird's eye views, and even things moving backward like an ambulance early in the film. But, as the movie progressed, I sensed that these interjected shots were meant to destabilize our understanding of time; it is still linear, unlike recent big-budget sci-fi pictures would have us think, but our characters' experience of it has been broken. We see, to some extent, what they see, and becoming "unstuck in time" alters their sense of reality and of self. Thankfully, the film keeps a sense of mystery and wonder by utilizing a few quirks of the drug's capabilities, so this does not become a sort of camp Alice in Wonderland pill that says "EAT ME." It also approaches the mystery through real science, in scenes of Steve testing its effects and limiting variables; most of the film is purely visual, and the filmmakers are asking us to participate in observing and deducing, rather than lecturing to us.

It helps to have two strong leading men who are fairly stoic. Jamie Dornan plays the deceptively complex Dennis while Anthony Mackie shoulders the dramatic burden as Steve. Despite his frequent flings, he seems to be a bit of a burnout; when he visits the doctor, things only get worse. But it seemingly makes him an ideal candidate to go searching for Dennis's missing daughter via experimental and experiential drugs. It also strengthens the strongest theme of the film, which is the alienating effect of being in a place out of time. Though the film consistently stops short of making overtly political references -- in fact, it's frustratingly absent of clear themes in this vein -- it is telling that Mackie plays a Black man in the deep U.S. south who resents hegemonic domesticity. As he travels to various times (all in the past) it becomes evident to us that nothing in the past is welcoming. He is attacked time and again, and it is not always clear if it is because of his futurism or his skin color.

Actually, now that I've said that, I think it's fair to say it's always because of his skin color. Though a longer movie or series might explore both sides of this, it's fitting that it was released this year, as America decided not to go back in time yet again to reclaim a lost, fictional "greatness."

Ultimately, the film flirts with burning itself out, and its final takeaway seems to be little more than a vague sense of alienation. Initially a strong theme, the finale indicates that trauma has a way of changing our lives (in a bad way, if these two men's experiences are to be taken seriously), and that fate isn't escapable, no matter how we try to manipulate or change it. For such a promising premise, I can't help but feel this concept was a little wasted in this movie. Then again, it's a beautifully minimalist approach to a genuinely intriguing and novel idea, and that's, in this viewer's opinion, the very best the genre can offer.

Robin Hood (2018)

Score: 1 / 5

Taron Egerton may be the hottest thing on screen these days, but even his beauty couldn't save the latest Robin Hood from disaster. Despite attractive and usually talented leads, Otto Bathurst's attempt at a revamped update on the timeless story squanders its few virtues. Essentially, it robs from us and gives to no one.

An origin story for a cultural icon that doesn't really need one, the newest version tries really hard to create its own franchise with highly bankable stars. Egerton emotes as Robin of Loxley, Jamie Foxx charismatically tries to do something fun with the part of John, and Ben Mendelsohn overacts his bleeding heart out as the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham. Eve Hewson as Marian and Tim Minchin as Friar Tuck are just bad, and there's really nothing else to say about that. F. Murray Abraham and Jamie Dornan show up for a few scenes that effectively set up future installments in the series -- for clearly the ending wants there to be more -- and while their scenes are perhaps the most interesting in this flick, I desperately do not want to see more.

The film's occasionally handsome design seems inspired by ugliness, something I'm still not sure works to the film's benefit. The overloaded sets are bewildering and messy, often dripping with grime and needless filth that distracts more than enhances. During multiple chase scenes -- for there are many in this action-packed romp -- I found myself utterly lost and wondering aloud why there were so many intensely detailed planks of wood everywhere. Weird, I know, but if the story is worthwhile and/or the action engaging on its own, you don't need the spectacle to be so overwhelming.

And the screenplay is just laughably stupid. It begins with the typical "Forget what you know" blather that subtextually says, "We aren't actually doing a Robin Hood story, we're doing some ignorant bullshit as an excuse to make money." It tries desperately to make itself relevant to teenagers, preaching at length about the evils of institutionalized religion, theocratic government, poverty and taxation, and damning the Crusades as if they needed it any more. Its one virtue is to suggest that Islam is in fact the victim of Western culture, not its villain; unfortunately, this point is not hammered home as hard as possible to the film's target audience. Instead -- and I note my position as a jaded millennial -- the film, as a clearly capitalist appropriation of public domain iconography, becomes hilarious in its outspoken messages of socialist principles. So, mostly (arguably hypocritically) progressive, except in its anti-feminist attitudes and relegation of Jamie Foxx to his role as a mystic black mentor to the white savior.

It's all highly silly stuff, with impossible action and ludicrous strings of plot points wallowing in special effects. The contemporary gloss of leathers do nothing to update the story -- though the designers clearly tried -- and the hint of rock music underscores the proceedings to mind-numbing effect. Moments of the script reach for immediacy: the Sheriff repeatedly shrieks about being the "law and order" and working to enslave the people in his mines, a hellish construct that looks suspiciously like an industrial park, and if you don't get post-traumatic flashes of Donald Trump you must be living under a rock. Paired with these modern elements are those that yearn for timelessness: in a moment of Robin's doubt, Marian encourages him by saying with absolute conviction, "If not you, who? If not now, when?" After involuntarily gagging, I choked on my own bile.

IMDb: Robin Hood

A Private War (2018)

Score: 4 / 5

It only makes sense that a master documentarian would segue into narrative film through the story of someone like them. And, really, for an emotional tale of obsession and revelation, it might not get any richer than the story of Marie Colvin. Colvin's tale as depicted in this film is less an odyssey across war-torn Asia and more of, well, her own "private war," her relationship with her job, her work, and her life.

It's less a war thriller than a war drama: essentially, the character of Marie Colvin becomes the lens through which we see the world. Rosamund Pike delivers an awesome performance, and it's her gritty realism -- and arresting deep voice -- that hammers this movie home. We begin with (though we may not know it yet) the scene of her death in Homs from the perspective of a drone surveying the ungodly wreckage. We immediately fly back in time and though the beats are nominally structured in terms of time "before Homs" -- thereby creating a cinematic nihilism that's hard to shake -- the film takes on a nebulous quality in which we shift from conflict to conflict without much detail.

And I think that's the point. It's not a Zero Dark Thirty exercise in specificity, but rather an impressionistic montage of a episodes in a woman's life that shape her character. The wailing women, demolished buildings, dead bodies, men with guns: all are largely interchangeable, much like the wars that cause them. Suffering and pain and destruction are the product of all wars, and to someone determined to live in these areas, all wars thus become the same. It's the individuals she meets and the stories she tells that matter most.

Most to her, that is. On screen, she's what matters to us. Chainsmoking her way through each frame, she catalogs the psychological and physiological damage of her work. Panic attacks, a gruff demeanor, shapeless work khakis, and her iconic black eye patch all disguise a vibrant woman lusting for life. She wears designer bras and enacts apparently satisfying sexual encounters (even with Stanley Tucci!). Most tellingly, she actively hates the disasters in which she finds herself, but nonetheless feels compelled to engage. She suggests to her ex-husband that they marry again, though he says it ended badly the first time. Similarly, even after she loses her eye, she goes back out into the field knowing full well the dangers in store.

In fact, she hates the wars and violence as much as the film's director, and that's what makes this film so interesting. We're witnessing people drowning in a phenomenon they hate and yet consciously -- intentionally -- continue to throw themselves into. And while the idea that war is a drug might be commonplace since The Hurt Locker, here we see that it even affects those who hate it. Colvin's obsessive tendency is summed up when she says she looks so everyone else doesn't have to; I wonder, though, given Heineman's tendencies (he clearly identifies with Colvin), if the line might also mean they look so that they can make us look as well.

And, like from other excellent movies lately about the press, we also gain a newfound respect for this most democratic of institutions, so often vilified by the current president's administration.

IMDb: A Private War

Anthropoid (2016)

Score: 3.5 / 5

I do love a good World War II drama. And while this one's no masterpiece, it furthers the proof that Bleecker Street is putting out some fine films in only its sophomore year. Anthropoid has its virtues, and in a summer of either overblown masterpieces or overblown failures, that's saying a lot. It's not pretentious, it's not elaborate, and it's not coated with CG crap. Small, detailed, and poignant, the picture takes us back in time to a lesser-known story that reminds us to consider the cost of our fights. Anthropoid will earn its place on my shelf for two main reasons.

The story. I've seen Valkyrie, sure, and I've read anecdotes here and there about the assassination attempts on high-level Nazi leaders during the war. Operation Anthropoid was one of these, the (unfamiliar to me) assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, a major figure in the regime and main man behind the Holocaust. I had seen Kenneth Branagh portray him in the 2001 drama Conspiracy, so I was able to contextualize the film a wee bit. Like in Valkyrie, this film follows conspirators in their planning and execution of the assassination in question, and then as they cope with the aftermath. It's not a novel idea for a film, but it certainly works. Unfortunately in Anthropoid, the script uses minimalist shorthand in cultivating our sympathies, forcing us to bring our own understanding of history to the film rather than teaching us new contexts. As I, for one, am still learning about the horrors of WWII, I had little knowledge of the effects of war on Czechoslovakia or its people, so the righteous anger of the assassins was less accessible to me. A more articulate screenplay would have made the characters and world of the movie much more accessible, which is a bit of a shame, since the incredibly detailed scene design and costuming and lighting were so entrancing. I felt the world on screen, I just didn't know it -- does that make sense?

The climax. This is the real gold mine. While most of the film is solid enough, from the point of the assassination attempt itself to the end, the plot radically shifts into thriller mode and ramps up its energy. By the time our heroes hole themselves up in a church for protection, we know it's almost over. What happened next was something I did not expect: A jarring, taut, edge-of-your-seat nail-biter of a firefight. It's pretty damn violent, to be sure, but actually so was a lot of this film (There's one scene of torture in particular that made me get light-headed. If you thought you hated Nazis, watch this scene and you'll realize you have more to give). The finale, though, is a microcosm of cinematic excellence, featuring fabulous visual editing, great sound mixing and editing, smart logistics, and some decent camerawork to boot. If you don't watch anything else in the movie, watch that sequence.

Okay, and there's a third reason. Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy both make me feel a certain way, and when they share a screen in period getup while crying and hugging and angsting out the wazoo, I can't stop the waterworks. Someone pass me a hanky.

IMDb: Anthropoid