The Fallout (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

HBO always pushes the limits when it comes to content -- just look at Euphoria, or don't -- and it seems that adolescent trauma is the name of the game when it comes to one of their latest original dramas. The Fallout drew me in because its star, Jenna Ortega, is suddenly a bona fide movie star doing surprising and prolific work (Scream 5, X, You season two, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous). And while Ortega completely nailed this complex and nuanced role, the film itself surprised me in wonderful and challenging ways. Writer and first-time feature director Megan Park centers on her versatile star to tell a difficult story that smacks of authenticity in almost every frame. She's not playing an easy game either, choosing to tell the story not of the climactic events that predicate her film but of young people coming to terms with those events.

I had no idea what this film was about when I clicked on it, but within a few minutes of its beginning -- which sets up an otherwise typical bildungsroman for a high school girl teasing her younger sister about her first period and staring at a local influencer in the bathroom with curiosity or jealousy (or lust?) -- the relative tranquility is shattered as gunshots ring out in the school halls. The two girls jump into the nearest stall together, lock the door, and climb atop the toilet. Vada (Ortega), a short and baggy-clothed malcontent, pulls out her phone but is shaking too much to use it as the rapid fire gets closer; Mia (Maddie Ziegler), a tall blond dancer, drops her bangles on the ground and slips out of her heels, which end up in the bowl. We're locked in the stall with them, and the sound mixing forces us to breathe frantically with them as the bathroom door opens and footsteps approach. It's Quinton (Niles Fitch), who hides in the next stall before announcing himself. The girls invite him to crawl into theirs; he does, leaving streaks of blood on the white tiles. He checks himself for bullet wounds before breaking into panicked tears and mourning his brother, who presumably died in front of him. The three wait in horrified sorrow until the police arrive.

It's a hard introduction to the film, but Park's sensitivity lies in its focus on these students and their experience. The rest of the film deals with their ability -- or inability -- to cope with the tragedy and continue to live despite the trauma. The honesty with which she portrays each subsequent scene is profound: while Vada's family sits in stony, shocked silence at the dinner table, the camera lingers on Vada's catatonic face. When the news reports updates on the incident, which we hear mostly off-camera in bits and pieces, we center on Vada's face as she texts Mia and Quinton, students who were probably not her friends before their shared survival story. The "outside world" is a nebulous force, one that only occasionally reminds us (or Vada, or Mia) that it's there. Our experience is bounded by a fuzzy screen, one that limits the sound and sight of much beyond awkward, mostly silent interactions. Vada and Mia start spending time together, acting like best friends always on the verge of courting each other; they drink wine and talk, smoke a joint and float in the pool, and sneak out of their houses to connect when they start to feel panicked.

Even the experiences of other students begin to feel "other" to her, such as her gay friend Nick (Will Ropp) who becomes the media face of the incident and speaks at rallies to condemn the NRA and governmental inaction over these tragedies. Park is determined to avoid telling the, sadly, familiar story of traumatized teenagers who become famous activists; she's interested in the silent majority of teenagers who live through the same experiences and don't become famous as a result. Vada has to go to therapy (with Shailene Woodley, in a bizarre casting choice), where she feels nothing; she has to return to school eventually, and when she does she gets high on ecstasy just to make it through the day. 

Park's sensitivity in direction only increases from the inciting incident, and as Vada navigates her own psyche and the halls of her school, we're treated to a smorgasbord of bittersweet scenes that seamlessly combine dark, uncomfortable drama with raw humor. Several scenes aren't arguably "necessary" for the furtherment of any negligible plot, but the general aesthetic of this film seems to toe the line with a "slice of life" approach. It's a fascinating way to handle the traumatic issues raised, and it does so -- I think -- in an extraordinarily dangerous and effective way. The film works to normalize the shooting and its aftereffects even as it criticizes that same phenomenon as it happens in real life. We're normalizing mass shootings, especially in schools, as a culture, and doing so -- Park rightly sermonizes in this film -- only increases and exacerbates the trauma experienced by the (often young) people most immediately affected.

The Mauritanian (2021)

 Score: 3.5 / 5

In 2001 only two months after 9/11, Mohamedou Ould Salahi was arrested at his home in Mauritania. After the authorities, desperate for justice, traded him around a bit, he found himself a prisoner at the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Although he was never formally charged with a crime, and only circumstantial evidence even marginally related him to one of the hijackers, Salahi was held there for fourteen years, tortured for information he did not know. It's an horrific story, one that lends itself well to a cinematic medium, especially carried by such a stellar group of actors. It's also a distinctly manipulative screenplay by writers M.B. Traven, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani, more or less the kind of "dear reader" pathos structured into an equally manipulative courtroom drama. Told in this way, the film must be inevitably compared to other, less timely, dramas, and found wanting as a result.

That's not to say the story isn't as interesting as the previous times we've heard it, on the news and never more than when Salahi's whistleblowing account of his time at Guantanamo Bay was published, heavily redacted by the government. After an initial sequence of Salahi's arrest, the film jumps to 2005, when a concerned lawyer named Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) decides to defend Salahi and either get him charged or released. As she goes through the process of entering the detention camp, I couldn't help but feel that the film was hinting at the similar introductory sequence to her character in The Silence of the Lambs; she enters a warren of nightmarish holding cells, most of the base obscured by hanging tarps and stone walls, stripped of potential weapons, and advised to wear a head scarf. She's primed to fear and dehumanize the man she's promised to help, and through Foster's eyes you can see the unspoken battle of wills in her mind.

Joining her is Teri (Shailene Woodley), an associate who has never seen anything like this. During the course of their research, and visits to Salahi (played by a brilliant Tahar Rahim), the two women constantly fight red tape, analyze redacted documents, and slowly but surely seek to rectify the wrongs done not just to their client but to all the inmates. In this way, the film often feels a little out of time; the now publicly known problem that was Guantanamo Bay -- essentially a brutish and brutal prison of torture and total lack of oversight -- is the villain here, but its human rights violations have been the subject of scrutiny for years. One can only guess that the filmmakers, whose project was greenlit in late 2019, felt inspired after the 45th president signed an executive order to keep the prison open indefinitely. Now, however, President Biden's administration has publicly planned to close the prison. Hopefully this movie will add to the support for that plan.

Perhaps the most interesting character arc in the film comes from Benedict Cumberbatch as the Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch, representing the U.S. government even as he becomes disillusioned and disturbed by the information coming out about Guantanamo Bay. His is the proverbial fall from grace, and his oaths are put to the test as the government's crimes are finally spoken in courts of law. But, interesting as he is and effective as Cumberbatch makes him, he feels a little too thinly written; actually, I'd say all the characters in this movie -- specific as they are, nominally -- are little more than archetypes. Bouncing off each other in familiar ways, the stakes are never particularly high. Even if you don't remember this story blaring from the morning news years ago, you instinctively know how this story will progress, regress, turn, and end. While that's not a negative quality in any film, much less one that recounts real events, it does make The Mauritanian surprisingly dull viewing.

But, bland and trite as it feels in retrospect, there is a lot to appreciate in this film. Not only is its earnest attempt to vindicate Salahi's name and life a more than worthy cause -- and, I think, largely succeeds, emotional manipulations aside -- but it features really wonderful performances and a few interesting aesthetic choices as well. Lengthy flashback sequences, especially near the film's end, depict Salahi's many years of torment in the prison. These are largely presented in boxy 4:3 aspect ratio, isolating the frame and cueing us to see Salahi as trapped and under a microscope. It's arguably unnecessary, as the climactic sequence is a lengthy and particularly violent series of horrors much like we saw in Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate; and its placement as the climax feels extremely exploitative and sentimental at the same time. But the layers of mindful, if heavy-handed, direction makes the film immediately accessible to average viewers who may have no idea what they're in for.

Snowden (2016)

Score: 3 / 5

Oliver Stone surprises us again. This time, though, I'm wondering if it wasn't the lesser kind of surprise.

The enigmatic character of Edward Snowden and his apparent crimes against the US government seem to be the perfect basis for a political/legal thriller and an engrossing bio-drama. And so they do, as Oliver Stone shows us in the ensemble-driven spectacle that is Snowden. The odd thing with this film, however, is that Stone himself seems to, for what might be the first time in his many directorial features, shrink away from the possibilities of his own film. Whereas his style almost always gives his films' substance a run for its money, here, the only thrilling thing to be seen is the story itself. The fact-based plot and the obviously painstakingly detailed production design are the only things that hold our attention.

Well, okay, maybe not the only things. The ensemble cast (including Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, and even Nicolas Cage) are all at the top of their respective games. Leave it to Stone to handle ensemble casts better than almost anyone. Joseph Gordon-Levitt proves once again his fabulous ability to change characters without a single crack in his performance. He is not quite chameleonic -- we never forget who it is we're really watching -- but his delivery is so pitch-perfect and impassioned that he sweeps us away with it. The movie is stolen, though, by Rhys Ifans as his primary instructor. I won't give anything away, but that man knows how to do his thing.

The movie works best when it's telling its story of governmental espionage and whistle-blowing; it will downright scare you, if you, like me, didn't really understand what the secrets were Snowden leaked. I don't know that the movie convinced me of Snowden's heroism, probably because those tropes were played so heavily-handed. But it's an amazing journey either way, and one that certainly made me pause the next time I wanted to Google search something. The movie tries a few times to become a character drama starring Snowden and his girlfriend (played by Shailene Woodley, unfortunately), and those scenes are woefully underwritten.

I have heard that the 2014 documentary Citizenfour is even more thrilling than Snowden, and I intend to find that out for myself. I wouldn't be surprised; Stone's film often feels dry and uninspired, finding its uncertain way between a not-so-thrilling thriller and cut-and-pasted biography. In short, it's not one of Stone's masterpieces, and if you're watching it for his craft, you will be disappointed as I was. If, on the other hand, you want to see the excellent cast doing what they do best, this is one picture you just can't miss.

IMDb: Snowden